And keeping it in the House, Minster of Health and Wellness, Michel Chebat struck back at critics of his Ministry's handling of a new distribution of tender awards for the supply of pharmaceuticals to the Government of Belize. As we reported last Friday, lots of eyebrows were raised when the tender list came out and many of the long established wholesalers got a small portion of the tender allotments.
The list featured lots of newcomer companies not known as wholesalers with established track records. This was facilitated by a change in policy - where importers no longer need a certificate of Good Manufacturing Practices; they only need a certificate showing Good Distribution Practices - which is a much lower threshold to meet.
Today in the House, the Health Minster said this is a good thing because it has made better meds more widely available, it has levelled the playing field and it has resulted in cost - savings to government:
Hon. Michel Chebat, Minister of Health
"The opposition has caused some confusion in the public domain as it relates to GMP. What the UDP did during their time was to skew the purchase of medication and pharmaceutical supplies to their preferred supplies, thereby hurting the Belizean pubic who were denied access to quality medication. Known brands such as Excedrin, aspirin, Tylenol, and Alieve became difficult to obtain. Manufacturers such a GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer discontinued their distribution of good medication to Belize. This is in addition to known generic brand, major and quality choice could to be imported. By adding GDP as a qualifier what this administration has done is to open up the market to quality medication for the benefit of Belizean people."
"They have tried for the past few weeks to bring into disrepute the tendering process and the quality of pharmaceuticals and supplies which madam speaker I find to be a slap in the face to all those public officers and member in the medical community who spend countless hours meeting to access and to select the best medication for the benefit of the health of all Belizeans. For context madam speak, for the year 2020/21 under the UDP administration, the did not bother to go through a tendering process. That is how blatant the corruption was under the UDP. What they did was to just roll over the contracts of those suppliers who were their friends or cronies from the year before while blowing the budget by an additional 1.5 million dollars. Madam speaker under the previous administration, the pharmaceutical wholesalers of this country was so frustrated by the blatant corruption and favoritism that they stopped bidding. Under the UDP, 18 vendors supplied this entire country while under this administration hope and fair play has been restored. This ear we advertised the tender in the local newspapers and on the ministry's Facebook page and this year 44 submission were made and after review from the tendering committee a whooping 34 successful bidders were awarded contracts."
