The $70million Scandal at ZMMSA and Ministry of Health
By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
Ministry of Health and Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency(ZMMSA) are seeking to irregularly pay an Egyptian agency $70million.
The matter of trying to ibrain medicines from Egypt is old and started in 2017.
The matter has been given fresh lease by Minister of Health, Silvia Masebo.
Earlier, they attempted to pay this money but Secretary to Treasury refused as he demanded a Government Account from Egypt since the project was being fronted as a Government to Government agreement.
Following the challenges, a trip was arranged and undertaken.
Ministry of Health dispatched a multi-discipline team to Cairo, Egypt to conduct due diligence of the bulky purchase of medicines.
The team was led by Presidential Advisor on Health, Roma Chilengi.
Upon their return,they forced a single-sourcing procurement where ZMMSA and Ministry of Health would pay the Egyptian Authority for Unified Procurement Medical Agency(UPA) $70million for the medicines.
The UPA was established recently in 2019 to coordinate healthcare initiatives.
The procurement is faulty as the agency is not manufacturer of medicines but is expected to contract other Egyptian companies to source medicines to supply to Zambia.
Further, the procurement has abandoned Zambia’s local suppliers and intend to repatriate over $70m-$120million for these untested medicines.
The medicines have not been subjected to local verification and efficacy test by the Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority(ZMMRA).
Like the purchase of wooden poles where ZESCO obtained a bank loan of $107million and paid Zimbabweans firms for the supply, this procurement ignores local contractors.
