…to skin the pharma cat
They say if you don’t succeed at first, then try and try again…and you’ll succeed at last. Well, your Eyewitness has to give a hat tip to the power-elite in the new dispensation who’re calling the shots on pharma importation. In the first year of the new PNC-led government they kept their promise to remove the most reliable – and least expensive – supplier of pharmaceuticals to Guyana in the last 30 years. So what if they created so many shortages in the supply chain to the hospitals and medical centres, you didn’t dare to even get a headache!!
Denial, of course, became the order of the day – until even their own sick supporters started screaming bloody murder! So, we had two initiatives to get what the doctors had ordered. The first – a warehouse that was a stone’s-throw away from the state-of-the-art one the old supplier used to provide free. They were going to exploit that Japanese “just in time” innovation! This, as explained by the Prime Minister, was necessary because when the GHPC needed drugs, they could be delayed from the Govt’s Diamond Pharma warehouse by the traffic on the East Bank Highway.
The problems with that story – apart from the facts that there was actually NO warehouse and one had to be created with monies the Ministry of Health forwarded! – was eventually, when the warehouse went beyond storing condoms and the requisite lubricants, the drugs now had to be shipped TO Diamond and back!! Don’t even ask why!!
Anyhow, as the shortages worsened, the scandalous secret $605M contract to that Trini firm ANSA – authorised by the new Health Minister who’d replaced the old Health Minister because of sticky fingers – was revealed. This was the plot all along – even the warehouse was just preparation. Ansa, you see, doesn’t have a warehouse in Guyana – and this had helped prevented them from being “pre-qualified”. Trouble was…everyone screamed “Wasn’t me!!” so loudly, it seems Shaggy was back in town and the contract was held in abeyance. A repeat of the parking Metres?
Not quite! The Health Minister had another arrow in her quiver for her Trini friends. (Isn’t it great what a regionalist, she is??) Going back to a Caricom facility (CARPA CRS) created three years ago to test generics, the Minister mandated – without any warning – that only Brand Name Pharma (ANSA’s forte!) can be imported directly to Guyana!! All generics – which is more than ¾ of all drugs used by Guyanese has to be tested!!
So while the Pharma cat was skinned for ANSA, guess who’ll get it literally in the end??!!.
…to live it up
Your live and learn. It’s no secret your Eyewitness gives Pressie the benefit of the doubt, right? But who would’ve thought he’d pull a play straight from Burnham’s blotted playbook? Your Eyewitness is referring to the report revealing he and his entourage rolled into the Bahamas like those High Rollers who’re regularly jetted in by the casinos that keep THAT economy afloat!! Didn’t take Pressie for a high roller!
Burnham? Yes!! As a student of that Machiavellian one, your eyewitness remembers reading about Burnham showing up at some Third World meet on a specially chartered Boeing Jet. And not only that – but arrived with a French Chef who served a five course meal, from a gold embossed menu!! Meanwhile, back in Guyana, the economy was nosediving to reach Haiti as fast as it could, of course!!
But hey!! You have to keep up appearances, don’t you?
Especially when you’re proceeding to dear old Blighty to meet the Queen!! Hip! Hip! Hurray for Mons!!
…to curtesy?
Your Eyewitness doesn’t know about you, dear reader, but isn’t the Queen a dear? Even brought her handbag to meet Granger in her own house. Shouldn’t there have been a side table for it?
We must keep up standards, mustn’t we??
