ANTI-RETROVIRAL drugs ‘bought’ from Uganda by the government are yet to be registered by the Namibia Medicines Regulatory Council, has learnt.
This comes after a health ministry official told The Namibian yesterday that the ARVs delivered last week Tuesday were actually not bought in Uganda.
The reported recently that the ARVs were bought from Cipla Quality Chemicals of Uganda for N$64 million without going to tender.
According to the senior official, the drugs did not come from Uganda and thus it puzzled them why health minister Bernard Haufiku and permanent secretary Andreas Mwoombola were saying the drugs are from the Ugandan company, Cipla Quality Chemicals.
“To be honest with you, these ARVs were not purchased from Uganda,” the senior official emphasised.
The drugs were dispatched to Katutura Intermediate Hospital on Wednesday last week from where they would be distributed to clinics in Windhoek.
According to the Namibia Medicines and Related Substances Control Act of 2003, medicines intended for human and for animal use should be registered before they are dispatched.
Registrar of medicine Johannes Gaeseb yesterday said he needed permission from Mwoombola to speak to .
However, another official who is not allowed to speak to the media, confirmed that the imported ARVs were not registered yet.
Another source told that the council was supposed to visit the manufacturer to inspect whether the medicines were suitable for use in the country, and this was not done.
An official at procurement said Haufiku and Mwoombola visited Uganda in December last year where the deal was sealed.
Another health ministry source said Haufiku signed off Cipla’s order four days before Christmas and then asked for the quotation later.
Both Haufiku and Mwoombola, who are in London, did not respond to questions sent to them yesterday.
Mwoombola later asked the ministry’s spokesperson, Ester Paulus, to respond. Paulus referred The Namibian to a statement released by the ministry early this month.
In the statement, Mwoombola denied allegations that the ministry awarded the tender unprocedurally, saying that the ARV order was an emergency.
He quoted the Tender Board Act of 1996, which stipulates that if a board, for any good cause deems it impractical or inappropriate to invite tenders, they do not need to.
Mwoombola further said the ministry had approached the Tender Board of Namibia to grant an annual exemption for the procurement of essential purchases which cannot be procured through the normal tender procedures.
However, understands that government policies state that tender exemptions are not done for ARV medication but only for general pharmaceuticals.
In his presentation in parliament on Wednesday last week, Haufiku said local suppliers quoted N$127 million, while the Ugandan company charged N$64 million.
Efforts to get hold of Cipla’s chief executive officer Nevin Bradford, proved to be futile.
spoke to three medical suppliers who denied that they were more expensive than the Ugandan company and that their prices were affected by the taxes they pay.
One supplier, who refused to be identified, said the ministry will have to pay N$9 million in taxes to get the drugs from Uganda.
The supplier asked why the health ministry would buy from Uganda and not South Africa from where they were getting the drugs all along.
