NMS wants own purchase rules

By Sylvia Nankya

THE National Medical Stores (NMS) has demanded separate regulations for the procurement of its medical supplies.

NMS described the current rules under the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets as hectic and bureaucratic.

Moses Kamabare, the general manager, told the parliamentary finance committee this week that the PPDA law does not provide a favourable regulatory regime for the procurement of medicines and medical supplies.

“Instead, the regulations slow down the process,” Kamabaare said.

“Procurement of medicines and medical supplies should be more flexible in order to ensure that life-saving items are available as and when they are needed by medical practitioners and the patients,” Kamabare told the committee.

The committee was scrutinising the PPDA (Amendment) Bill 2010.

The Bill seeks to strengthen the PPDA and streamline the functions of accounting officers and contracts committees by making them personally liable for their actions in the procurement process. Kamabaare said delays in procurement of medical supplies could result into loss of lives or serious deterioration of health services, because it also impacts on the lifespan of the medicines.

He explained that although some waivers exist in the current PPDA regulations, they do not adequately address the specific attributes of medical supplies as well as recent developments in the procurement, storage and distribution of medicines for government health facilities.

Such developments include a Presidential directive that all medicines and medical supplies for government health facilities be embossed to guard against pilferage to the private health facilities.

“This means that the stock of these items must be specially embossed from industries for NMS and such items will not be available on the open market as ex-stock,” he added.

He said since medicines used in Uganda were registered by the National Drug Authority, no value would be added to the process even if the open bidding method was used in procurement because they are limited to the registered trademarks.