KARACHI: Stakeholders not satisfied with new tendering process: Medical supplies to CDGK hospitals
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 25: Deviating from, what marketers say, the standard procedures, the city government’s health department has approved about 377 (64 per cent) items for CDGK hospitals on the grounds that those are either quality products or considered as essential ones. The new practice has been adopted following a recent exercise under the “central purchase of general medicines and other items.”
According to CDGK sources, tenders were invited by the city government in mid February this year for the supply of 781 items, under group-1 of the tender relating to medicinal, laboratory, surgical and disposable items. At some later stage, about 193 items were either dropped by the purchase committee or no bid was submitted against them.
“Only 211 (36 per cent) contracts were cleared by the central purchase committee on the basis of lowest quoted rates, which could be considered as truly in line with the recognised objectives of any tendering process,” said a health department source.
While the EDO Health maintains that all the purchase deals, involving over Rs300 million, have been struck in a transparent manner keeping in view saving, other relevant quarters have expressed some reservations, saying that the government was, perhaps, about to ignore the purpose of open tendering.
The EDO also heads the central purchase committee which, according to him, has examined all quotations a week before the same were submitted for his approval.
Marketers and the parties familiar with the procedure of hospital purchases claim that the purchase committee, which mostly operates from a city government hospital, has failed to observe the rules and standard procedures.
Their style of selecting suppliers, distributors or manufacturers on the basis of single quotation or under the garb of quality and essential items will definitely pave the way for an underground cartelism in future, they say, adding that on the other hand, the companies will also lose confidence in the tendering exercise, according to a contractor.
It was stated that the committee ignored the practice of collecting competitive rates and went for selecting suppliers through negotiations with and recommendations from a handpicked group of personnel. A good number of items were given to a couple of firms which were the only parties offering the rates, instead of re-tendering to invite more as per the prescribed rules. Finally, the items would be termed essential ones, it was further said.
Some quarters are also not satisfied with the examples of essential items, indicating that the items like vitamins (B or C), calcium, non-specific anti-allergic nasal drops, non-specific astringent eye drops, and non-specific soothing skin powder are termed essential only to please the favourite parties.
In the tablet category, 43 out of 127 were approved on the basis of rates. The committee approved only 16 out of 116 items in the injection category for which the lowest rates were received while the rest of the injection supply were approved under the head of ‘quality’, ‘single quoted’ or ‘essential’.
A distributor has been approved for supply of about 71 items out of which only 19 were the lowest quoted. In addition, the firm will do a business with a turnover of about Rs37 million with the city government during the financial year as 51 of its items have been selected on the basis of quality or single quotation, according to supply position document approved by the central purchase committee.
Another party has been selected for the supply of about 55 items, mostly in the categories of surgical, disposable and dressing material. The party will supply 25 items worth Rs16 million only on the basis of quality and single quoted items, as transpired from the official documents.
When EDO Health Dr A. D. Sajnani was contacted for his comments, he said that the committee adhered to the rules and worked in the interest of the city government. Sensing any shady deal or dubious exercise in regard to medicine purchase meant for the devolved health institution of Sindh government and defunct KMC and DMC or District Councils was not appropriate, he added.
The committee constituted for the purpose was all competent and comprised personnel of integrity with diverse medical specialities, he maintained, adding that if any discrepancy was detected in the bidding and allocations of supplies, he was ready to be held accountable. Dr Sajnani observed that many things had improved considerably as far as medicine purchases were concerned.
In reply to a question, he said that he personally entered into negotiations with some of the suppliers and manufacturers to get their quoted rates reduced further.
Many of the deals pertaining to ‘quality’ or ‘essential’ items were approved on the recommendations of medical superintendent and doctors sitting in the committee. These committee members, he pointed out, were not only the end-users but they also knew the worth and effectiveness of medicines and hospital materials as they possessed considerable experience in the profession.
