After three-and-a-half years of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC), most Guyanese feel our Government is rotten to the core. Nothing exemplifies the rotten, corrupt, incompetent and uncaring core of APNU/AFC more than the report that medicines are being kept in termite-infested, humid and hot hotel rooms, while half of a Government-owned, international-standard warehouse at Diamond, East Bank Demerara is empty. People were stunned by the report that medical supplies were simply thrown into seven termite-infested, hot rooms at the Ocean View Hotel. Incompetence or corruption?
When did the Ocean View Hotel rooms become “medical bonds”? Who certified these rooms as suitable for warehousing medical supplies? When did the Ministry contract these rooms? Was the need for more space to store medical supplies ever advertised? How much is the Public Health Ministry paying for the use of seven rooms at Ocean View? Where is the contract for the use of these rooms? The Auditor General could not answer any of these questions. All he could say is that there are seven rooms which are termite-infested, no temperature control, in which medical supplies were dumped and there was no way to verify what was in the room. This is simply shameless, naked corruption.
While the daily newspapers and TV newscasts have highlighted this glaring corruption, there are many other questions yet to be asked. Why the need for extra space to store medical supplies, when just down the road, there is a half-empty, international-standard warehouse owned by Government? What is happening at the Diamond Medical Warehouse? If they tell us that Diamond is filled to capacity, we should really worry. First, if it is filled to capacity, why do we still have such chronic shortages of medicines across the country? If it is not full, why did we have to use termite-infested hotel rooms not far away? MPs and the media must demand to view the warehouse to verify the status at Diamond. My information is that the bond is only half-utilised, just as it was when the Sussex Street “medical bond” was contracted at the princely sum of about $15 million per month.
Does this mean that at a time when APNU/AFC has buckled under pressure to end the contract by yearend for the Sussex Street “Medical Bond”, that this bond, too, is finally now fully utilized? The Auditor General’s Report appears to describe the Sussex Street “Medical Bond” that is not at full capacity and improperly used. But let us not forget that the Sussex Street “Bond” was only an excuse to be generous to one of APNU/AFC’s friends and that the official explanation given by the Prime Minister was that the “bond” was needed to avoid traffic on the East Bank Demerara.
In the Auditor General’s Report 2017, there are ugly examples of how warehousing medical supplies provides opportunities for corruption. The misuse of the Sussex Street ‘medicine bond” is simply mind-boggling. This misuse adds to the shameful corruption of paying a donor and friend of APNU/AFC more than $400 million since July 2016. Basically, the Auditor General confesses exasperation that things have just been thrown into the “bond”, without any proper system of packing or cataloguing. Is the Ocean View rooms now another generous outreach to a friend?
These corrupt contracts to warehouse medicines and medical supplies appear even worse considering this Government turned its back on the opportunity to use an international standard warehouse at a cost dramatically less than what APNU/AFC is incurring for the Sussex Street “bond”. For more than a decade, before 2015 and until 2016, the Health Ministry utilised a real medical warehouse owned by the NEW GPC for free. When the owners asked for a nominal payment for the continued use of this warehouse, the Government refused and ended up with a makeshift, unacceptable “bond” they were willing to pay rent and other charges amounting to $15 million per month, far in excess of what they would have paid for the continued use of an internationally certified warehouse. But at the time, there was also adequate space available at Diamond.
The latest Auditor General’s Report, the 2017 Audit, is a catalogue of corruption in Guyana. That the Auditor General’s Report 2017 contains evidence of corruption is not breaking new grounds. But the Auditor General’s Report 2017 exceeds all previous reports in terms of the levels of corruption. Almost every page of the Auditor General’s Report 2017 has some evidence of corruption. Since its release in the Parliament two weeks ago, the newspapers have been highlighting some sensational examples of the corruption that appears to have Central Government’s stamp of complicity.
