GPO accused of procurement irregularities

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has allegedly found irregularities in the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO)’s procurement of imported raw materials to make paracetamol tablets, and in the GPO’s construction of a Bt1.4-billion influenza-vaccine plant in Saraburi’s Tab Khawang district.
The director of the DSI’s corruption prevention and suppression centre will sit with the Public Health Ministry-assigned panel, chaired by ministry permanent secretary Dr Narong Sahamethapat, to probe irregularities in the purchasing and procurement process, including medicines.
After meeting with Public Health Minister Pradit Sinthawanarong, who supplied the DSI with more evidence about alleged irregularities, DSI chief Tarit Pengdith said yesterday he would decide next week if the DSI would submit a case to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and state attorney to file a lawsuit over alleged wrongdoing.
According to Tarit, the DSI found that the GPO had stopped producing paracetamol in 2003 and had hired a private company to produce a replacement drug. In 2011, the GPO purchased 48 tonnes of raw materials for paracetamol but, at that time, the GPO could not produce the medicine, as its factory was still under construction.
A year later, the GPO imported another 100 tonnes of raw material, ostensibly to produce the painkiller, but production could not go ahead as the factory was still not built.
“We wonder why the GPO kept importing raw material from the same company, even when its factory was yet to be finished?” Tarit said, adding that the DSI also questioned the GPO’s decision to import the raw material twice, although there was no plan to produce paracetamol.
Tarit said the DSI also found that 18 batches of raw material to be used in producing paracetamol were of poor quality and tainted. “We are now waiting for the report from the Department of Medical Science and the Defence Industry and Energy Centre’s pharmaceutical factory to explain about the raw material’s poor quality,” he said. The DSI initially claimed to have uncovered a network of private companies and groups who might have been nominees for certain benefit groups allegedly involved in GPO’s purchasing and procurement of raw materials.
As for the delayed Saraburi vaccine plant construction, Tarit said there were many contracts which might be considered to have violated the state purchasing and procurement regulations.
Tarit said he would invite GPO representatives to explain the organisation’s purchasing and procurement process on these two issues.