Suppliers may lose business

By SALLY TIWARI
INDIGENOUS and local medical suppliers are afraid of losing business should the National Executive Council approve a submission from the Health Department and AusAID to establish an independent procurement authority.
Indigenous Medical Suppliers chairman Paul Pio said the authority would manage supplies for the department.
Pio claimed the K100 million Health Department annual budget to buy medical supplies would be used by the authority to engage foreign firms through an international tender to supply the department.
“The department’s K100 million budget for the purchase of medical supplies is a major pharmaceutical market in the South Pacific and we cannot let this business opportunity slip past us and go out of the country,” he said.
He said if the authority was set up, it could have international standards that some new local pharmaceutical firms might not meet when competing with multi-national firms, resulting in the loss of business.
Pio said the loss of business would result in loss of jobs for locals employed by pharmaceutical firms.
He said there were 12 indigenous medical suppliers and 10 other suppliers contracted by the Health Department.
Pio, the first former national manager for area medical stores Port Moresby and Lae and a former senior procurement officer with the Health Department, said the medical supply reform was an old concept that they had tried to introduce in 1996.
“Instead of trying to introduce a totally new concept, the national government should resource the existing process of procurement,” he said.
Pio said like other small or medium enterprises they were looking forward to the government’s new stimulus economic package for small and medium enterprises announced by Minister for Trade, Commerce and Industry Richard Maru.
He said the department should call a public forum to collect ideas to improve the medical supply system that was user friendly and conducive to the local environment.
Attempts to get comments from Health Secretary Pascoe Kase were unsuccessful.