GOVERNMENT WARNS MEDICAL SUPPLIERS

PROFESSOR Lackson Kasonka has said government will engage other medical suppliers if the players who have been awarded tenders to procurement and supply medicines and other medical suppliers decide not to honour their mandate on account that prices have changed due to the depreciation of the Kwacha.

And Prof Kasonka has claimed that the UPND government under the leadership of President Hakainde Hichilema strongly believes in the doctrine of the rule of law and shall not intervene in the standoff between the Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency (ZAMMSA) and the suppliers, who are not ready to supply drugs because time lapse of their tenders.

Prf Kasonka, the Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary says the standoff between ZAMMSA and medical suppliers was a business arrangement in which government had no interest and would not intervene.

He said Zambia was a free economy and that the negotiations between ZAMMSA and medical suppliers were a pure business transaction that did not warrant the intervention of government or President Hichilema.

Prof Kasonka however said if the suppliers who had been awarded the tenders to procure and supply medicines and other medical supplies were not willing to meet their obligations, government would have no option but to look elsewhere and engage those who would be ready to do business with ZAMMSA without arm-twisting antics.

“There is not only one avenue to buy medicines…so if the suppliers who have been awarded tenders are saying they cannot supply because prices have changed, we shall move on and look somewhere else. This is a free economy my man and the suppliers know that. They (suppliers) want me to arm-twist them and tell them to supply the medicines at whatever cost. I will not do that. So, if the suppliers are saying the dollar (Exchange rate) has changed, we shall look somewhere else,” Prof Kasonka said.