…on Pharma investment
As an Eyewitness, yours truly knows what an impediment it’d be if he were cockeyed. After all he’s been forced to read the cockeyed effusions of those trying to defend the indefensible on this “PharmaStorageGate” over the past week. It took a strong stomach not to barf, when all one Vice President could say, “Bad boy! Don’t do it again”!!
But your Eyewitness wants to look at the sordid affair from another angle. The “angle” of what everyone and their uncle’s running around screaming it’s what Guyana needs – investments. Let’s look at the facts. Back in 2000 or thereabouts, the Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation was privatised and renamed NEW GPC INC.
Unlike several other privatisations that were run into the ground – literally in the case GAC! – the NEW GPC turned the beleaguered pharmaceutical manufacturer and supplier around within a few years. How? By investing hundreds of millions and bringing in professionalism into the sector. It created the most modern Pharma entity in the region.
It was able to manufacture anti-retrovirals by 2001, and lower the cost by a factor of thousands to treat patients of the dreaded disease that was threatening to overwhelm the health sector. It also replaced many manufacturing lines for its over-the-counter products and pharmaceuticals and expanded the export markets to being in much needed foreign reserves.
Because of the sorry state into which it had fallen, most of the drugs imported into the country to service the run down health sector was done through international agencies like PAHO and IDA. The NEW GPC was able to compete with these institutions because it brought its standards up to WHO/PAHO standards by also investing hundreds of millions also into the ancillary facilities demanded by the Pharma supply chain standards.
Chief among this was constructing a its state of the art Pharmaceutical Warehouse. They did this for the simple reason that in no country of the world can you be a major supplier of Pharma to the Government and not have a certified Pharma warehouse! When the US was bringing in drugs to fight HIV/AIDS under its President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Programme the only warehouse certified by them was the NEW GPC’s and this is where they stored their medicines – until they built the Diamond Facility.
So what the government’s been doing in altering the pre-qualification criteria – which demands bidders having at least a 30,000 sq ft bond – is to place Guyanese at risk when the supply chain management for Pharma is compromised. The latest scandal in renting a bottom house is only the latest outrage.
Not to mention penalising the NEW GPC for investing and creating jobs!
…on citizens’ outrage
Back in the day, the singer/poet Bob Dylan (think of a white Bob Marley!) asked in one of his most famous compositions: “How many times can a man turn his head/ And pretend that he just doesn’t see?” He could’ve been speaking to many in this administration . How many times can they pretend the lapses in integrity are just innocent mistakes? And what was Dylan’s answer to his question? He was quite equivocal: “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind/ The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”
Once again, as a Minister of the government’s caught with his pants down ( this time in Parliament!) the spin doctors repeat the foundation of the lie that Minister Norton uttered to bring the government into disrepute. To wit that the decision to rent a warehouse on an “emergency” basis – to justify “sole sourcing – was because the NEW GPC was charging an “exorbitant” rental!
Every day bucket ah guh ah well..One day ‘e battam gon fall out!
…Exxon concessions
GT&T’s shown when an international company has a contract advantageous to itself it will insist on “sanctity of contract”. No changes, thank you! And here Minister Trotman informs us EXXON agreed to “renegotiate” it’s contract with us for OUR benefit!
Please excuse your Eyewutness’ snort of derision!
