Procurement of GHC 23M anti-snake serum; The twist and turns

Fresh documents intercepted by ABC News Ghana have revealed very worrying twists and turns in the aborted procurement process which started last August for the supply of anti-snake venom serum.

While unhealthy backroom negotiations are ongoing, poor and innocent farmers are dying because of unavailability of the serum at the various health facilities.

ABC News Ghana has also chanced upon a World Health Organization document which states categorically that the drug Pharmanova India was seeking to supply to Ghana was not suitable for Sub-Sahara Africa.

It would be recalled that ABC News Ghana recently published that the Public Procurement Authority(PPA), had in a landmark ruling overturned the decision by the Health Ministry to completely cancel a controversial bidding process for the procurement of anti-snake venum.

In a letter dated 26th March, 2019 and signed by its Chief Executive, A B Adjei, PPA ordered the Health Ministry to disqualify “Pharmanova Export Private Limited of India and Pharmanova Limited of Ghana on the basis of tender documents and to conduct a re-evaluation of the remaining tenders received using a completely new panel of evaluators”.

According to the intercepted letter and report, the attention of MOH was drawn to the matter of “pricing and ensuring that value for money was is attained”

The ruling of PPA is in sharp contrast with the unilateral decision by the Health Ministry to completely jettison the bidding process as some participating companies raised red flags.

PPA arrived at the decision after it had received a petition dated 30th January 2019 from one of the bidding participating companies, As-Tesco Investment Limited.

As-Tesco Investment, among others, alleged that a bidding price quotation by Pharmanova Export Private Limited of India had mysteriously ballooned from USD310,000 to USD3.1 million. Again, a lower price quotation by Pharmanova Limited of Ghana of USD2.3 Million had skyrocketed to USD23 Million.

Meanwhile, the face value of the procurement sum was pegged at USD3.1Milliom.

Upon receipt of the petition, PPA, which is mandated to ensure value for money, and efficiency requested all information pertaining to the tender in issue from the MoH.

The Authority then started investigating the issues of double-bidding, price change after competitive bidding had closed, bid security manipulation, not meeting the additional qualification requirements among others.

Tenders for supply of the anti-venom serum were officially opened in August 2018, but the decision to award the contract for supply of same was delayed until December 2018 as the Health Ministry allegedly schemed to award the contract to one particular company.

The Ministry of Health requested from the Central Tender Review Committee financial clearing for the Pharmanova Export Pvt Ltd.

As the various procurement breaches; double-bidding, price change after competitive bidding had closed, bid security manipulation, not meeting the additional qualification requirements in the tender process on the part of the Health Ministry were brought to the fore by other companies who submitted bids, the Central Tender Review Committee cancelled the financial clearance for procurement of the vital anti-venom serum.

Rather than ratify breaches in the procurement process as identified and select a vendor with a potent serum that is registered by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), the MoH took a decision to cancel the entire procurement process altogether – because its alleged favourite company could not win the bid.

In an interesting twist, the Committee that was set up to review the tender documents of the remaining bidders concluded that non of the companies was qualified to supply the drug.

The Committee stated that the bid prices of the remaining four companies was way and above the budget of the Ministry. However, documents in possession of ABC News have proven that non of the companies bidding price was above the threshold of Ghc. 23.500million.

Pharmanova Export PVT had a tender price OF USD 3.100,000,00. Pharmanova Ltd quoted GHC23. 335,000.00 ELI Pharmaceuticals Ltd quoted USD4M, AS TESCO also quoted Ghc 20.750,000.00 while Kinapharma Ltd had a tender price of Ghc20 million.

Meanwhile, Pharmanova Export Pvt. Ltd. presented a product from VINS Bioproducts has been flagged by the World Health Organization as lacking the potency for treatment of snake-bites, especially from Echis Ocellatus, and that the evaluation process was terminated for reasons contained in the Snake Anti-venom for sub-Saharan Africa Dossier Review.