Drug bond redux
If Dr George Norton and the government were hoping that the drug bond scandal would quietly dissipate in the ether, then on Thursday they were rudely disabused of that notion. After some noisy altercation in Parliament when PPP/C MP Anil Nandlall claimed that the government was paying for the Sussex Street bond where “not a tablet is being stored” and Minister Norton hotly denied it, Speaker Barton Scotland on request from the opposition authorized a delegation from Parliament to go there and find out. It was an enlightened move on his part, since it allowed for the reality of the situation to be established rather than continuing with the empty, overheated exchanges in the Chamber which would have uncovered nothing.
Once the delegation with the media in tow did gain access – and that took a considerable time – it was found that upstairs there was some equipment stored on the lower shelving, while downstairs there were heavy-duty items, including a number of refrigeration units. None of them, however, contained any medicines, and Dr Norton was eventually forced to concede that no pharmaceutical drugs were in fact stored at the bond.
While the opposition exercises itself on whether the Minister of Public Health through his statements during the ‘debate’ has misled the National Assembly yet again, there are more fundamental issues at stake. It will be remembered that in the first instance the bond was rented from Lawrence ‘Larry’ Singh of Linden Holding Inc whose credentials in this area are quite obscure. The contract with Mr Singh, it might be noted, was in defiance of the procurement law, since it was single sourced, and at the time it was signed the building was still incomplete. What was worse was that Linden Holding was advanced $25 million as a security deposit by the government, which invited the allegation that the money was utilized to either purchase or renovate the building.
At the time the Ministry of Public Health had the Materials Management Unit at Diamond, which had been built under the previous administration and which met international standards for the storage of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. It has never been made clear to the public whether that bond could not still accommodate more stock. The previous government had also utilized a bond owned by New GPC in Ruimveldt, a structure which also met international standards, and for which no rent was charged. However, New