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Tuesday, July 22, 2008
P75T worth of drugs sold in outlets expired
CEBU CITY -- Medicines worth P75,492.03 sold in the Botika ng Barangays in Central Visayas expired during the year.
That, including a P15 million overprice in the purchase of multivitamins last year, were among the findings of the Commission on Audit (COA) in its audit of the Department of Health (DOH)-Central Visayas last year.
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Also, of the 167 Botika ng Barangays in Central Visayas, 109 were operating without a special license to operate.
Most of them were given seed capital in the form of medicines and drugs while waiting for the issuance of their licenses.
Thus, COA has suggested that Botika ng Barangays unable to get their licenses after a certain amount of time should return the seed capital, with the operators paying for any unaccounted item.
As for the expiration of the medicines, COA reported that this resulted from the delay in the release of the medicine packages, especially those with nearing expiry dates, to the drugstores.
Also, some medicines were not sold out before their expiry dates.
Meanwhile, DOH-Central Visayas has asked the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) to order the supplier of the multivitamins to come up with corrective measures.
"During one of our monitoring, we have discovered that the price of vitamins in the botika ng barangay were very much lower than those bought by the PS-DBM," said DOH 7 Regional Director Susana Madarieta.
PS-DBM bought 14,560 boxes of multivitamin capsules at P1,199.12 per box while the DOH central office procured these at only P137 per box.
The COA audit noted that PS-DBM and the DOH central office bought the multivitamins from the same supplier, Diamond Laboratories, Inc.
But PS-DBM had argued that they based the price per unit of the multivitamins on the one listed in the Agency Procurement Request submitted by DOH officials.
Also, a DOH representative attended all public bidding activities on the purchase but did not question the cost, it added.
DOH officials said, however, that their representative was not present during the opening of the bids and the release of the notice of awards.
Madarieta said PS-DBM took responsibility of bidding for a supplier of medicine because DOH is not allowed to handle big amounts of money.
The health department had an allocation of P92 million for medicines, which included the multivitamins.
"Once we discovered the high prices, we immediately notified COA," she said.
DOH-Central Visayas has requested PS-DBM to ask the supplier of the medicine to compensate for the overpricing.
"We have asked PS-DBM to convince Diamond Laboratories to provide us with extra medicine to cover up the overpriced ones," Madarieta said.
Since the health department sent the "letter for appropriate action" to PS-DBM last year, it has not received an answer from Diamond Laboratories yet. (EPB of Sun.Star Cebu)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Cebu. (July 22, 2008 issue)
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