By KALOBWE BWALYA
THE Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) has heard that full due diligence was not taken when the Ministry of Health awarded Honey Bee Pharmacy a US $17 million to supply medical kits including substandard condoms.
This was revealed at the PAC hearing yesterday, where Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary for Administration Kakulubelwa Mulalelo, and director for procurement Wilson Banda, ZAMRA Medical Stores Limited (MSL), and the Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) were summoned.
And ZABS executive director Manuel Mutale confirmed that according to tests the latex condoms and gloves supplied by Honey Bee, were substandard and the results were submitted to ZAMRA and Medical Stores for a decision to be made.And ZAMRA has admitted that there has been an oversight by the institution to not recall the products from the market because the authority has been waiting for other test confirmations from Zimbabwe.
MSL distributed condoms and gloves to the public that did not meet the required standards set by the Zambia Bureau of Standards in September, 2020.
But the Committee heard that unfortunately the fake condoms, gloves and paracetamol was authorized for distribution more than three months ago by the office of the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Health despite the items being substandard.
The Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary for Administration, ZAMRA and Medical Stores all struggled to give satisfactory answers on why fake condoms and gloves have been distributed to the public and no recall of the products has been done three months after the distribution, thereby putting the lives of many people across the Country in danger.
Meanwhile, Honey Bee Pharmacy through one of its directors Zakir Motala failed to provide the addresses of the company as documents availed did not have such information including letter heads and has been ordered to provide the information in a few days.
Chairperson of PAC Howard Kunda and his members rebuked the Ministry of Health for what they called poor and reckless running of a sensitive ministry that deals with lives of people and demanded that all the anomalies be resolved even if a lot of damage has already been done.
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