Under the APNU/AFC, the public health sector has become a cash cow, milked to create jobs for activists of the APNU/AFC and to give lucrative procurement contracts to donors and friends of the APNU/AFC. In 2016, the B budget is being milked for political pay-offs and for buying political loyalty, rather than to improve people’s lives.
The latest scandal to rock Guyana is a house bought by a businessman for $25M and then rented out to the Ministry of Public Health as a medical warehouse for $12.5M per month. Clearly this sweetheart deal is a political farce that smells like some people are lining their pockets. The so-called ‘warehouse’ is still under construction even though the Minister clearly pronounced that they were forced into a non-tender, sole sourcing devise to rent the building because of the urgency of storage space for medicines which are sitting at the wharf. The Minister lied and, in the meantime, the scandal of drugs and medical supplies shortages at every hospital and every health centre in all ten regions continue.
The smell of such a blatant, corrupt, rotten deal even shocked some of the most ardent supporters and apologists for the APNU/AFC. In response to the shock and the uproar, the President pretended to be surprised and established a Cabinet Review Team, headed by Raphael Trotman, the Minister of Natural Resources and the resident governance czar. Within days, he reported that the team had completed the review and that they found nothing wrong with the contract, even while admitting that the Minister of Public Health may have misrepresented some of the facts. Trotman simply recommended that the Minister apologise.
One detail in this warehouse scandal that deserves highlighting is that the Minister of Public Health reported that the make-believe warehouse met all of the PAHO/WHO requirements, a pronouncement that was reiterated by Trotman. But how could PAHO/WHO, or anyone, else certify that a building has met PAHO/WHO requirements, when it is still a house being reconfigured as a warehouse? Trotman himself insisted that the Cabinet Review Team had visited the building and they themselves have determined that the building has met all the requirements.
Truth is, someone should ask them to produce any certificate that any expert team has visited and certified that the building has indeed met all the requirements. The owners who rented the building also need to provide such a statement. No matter what anyone says, the truth is pellucid – both Norton and Trotman are lying about the building meeting PAHO/WHO requirements.
But the hypocrisy is even starker – Cabinet appoints a Review Team to look at a contract that shocks the whole country by its shamelessness and sheer audacity. This, however, was another hoax because Cabinet had to approve this contract. Did they approve the contract without knowing about it? Renting a house that the owners bought for just $25M, just within the last few months, for more than $450M over three years and renting it as a medical warehouse which has certain rigid requirements, must have raised urgent red flags. Red flags had to be raised further because the Ministry could have rented space for less than 25% this cost, space that was utilized by the Ministry for free for the last decade and which is certified as an internationally certified warehouse.
The truth is, all of this is symptomatic of the health sector being viewed as a place to stash large sums of money to maintain a political cash machine or a cash cow to allow the APNU/AFC to build political loyalties. For example, a person shows up at the GPHC as the new Deputy CEO. The Ministry of Public Health is unaware of his appointment. This is not a rare example of people being appointed to big jobs in the public health sector without the requisite qualifications and without the knowledge and input of the Public health Ministry. It happens every day somewhere in the sector. In one instance, the supervising doctor at one hospital went to work one day and was met by another doctor who had just graduated and was informed that he was no longer in charge.
In the meantime, medicines and medical supplies are absent, and often patients are told that medicines must be obtained through the private sector. Operating theatres are closed because there are no supplies. Dentists cannot do their job because they have no anaesthetic. Children are put at risk because there are shortages of vaccines. Diabetic, heart and high blood pressure patients risk their lives because they cannot get medicines from their hospitals or health centres. There are serious shortages of laboratory supplies and often the blood bank runs out of blood bags, etc. These have become common, everyday occurrence in the public health sector. Throughout it all, Granger and his merry band of APNU/AFC Ministers only see the cash cow to be used for buying political favours.
