Government Members of Parliament (MP), Dr. Vishwa Mahadeo and Dr. Bheri Ramsaran dug into the APNU+AFC’s management of the public health system at Day 2 of the Budget Debates today.
Using Region Six as an example, Dr. Mahadeo said that health-related items bought by the Regional Administration were paid for at a much higher price than necessary. In some cases, he said that the region paid 300 per cent more according to the Auditor General’s report.
While such transactions should have been monitored by the Regional Tender Board, he notified the House that the Board, which should have representation from both Government and Opposition, had no representatives from the Opposition.
Meanwhile, he said that former Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence had “no clue” when it came to health care delivery. On the general scale Dr. Mahadeo said that there were drug and medical supply shortages in all regions, non-functioning equipment, and non-corporative Regional workers.
“Under the stewardship of the APNU+AFC government, the public health sector of Guyana was devastated,” Dr. Mahadeo said. “All the positive programmes that we had in Region Six were killed immediately as soon as APNU+AFC got in power.”
Dr. Mahadeo also criticized the APNU+AFC’s past budgets for introducing over 200 new taxes, removing the $10,000 annual grants from school children, removing the subsidies on water and electricity for pensioners and closing the sugar estates putting hundreds on the breadline.
Added to this, he said, there were high increases in Value Added Tax (VAT) and increased fees for drainage and irrigation and mining equipment. “Mr. Speaker, this begs the question, who was really enjoying the good life? Because it most certainly was not the ordinary people of Guyana,” he said.
He resolved that the mere fact the APNU+AFC is sitting on the Opposition side of the House means that their past budgets did not facilitate the ‘good life’ as promised.
Shining spotlight then on the PPP’s budget, he said: “This 2020 budget presented by my Government has not only restored the school grant but increased it. It has restored subsidies on water for pensioners, it has removed taxes that were introduced by the previous Administration and it caters to the reopening of sugar estates closed by the APNU+AFC.”
Also addressing the management of the health sector, was Dr. Ramsaran who agreed that there is shortage of drugs across the health system which was present since 2018. He promised that the PPP/C would put Guyana “back on track” and correct all of these shortcomings.
“The Ministry of Health had expanded when the PPP/C was in office a few years ago before we had this pause button pressed for a short while. Training was a significant aspect of our work…once you come in at one level of education, you don’t stay there forever, we kept building you up,” he said.
“We have a very good arrangement with the Chinese and the Cubans who send in lots of specialists. The aim is now to gradually retire those — we’ll probably never be able to retire them totally in the next few decades – but we’ll replace them with Guyanese who have been trained in different institutions.”
According to Dr. Ramsaran, the PPP is leading the Government in the direction of building a sustainable health system. A total of $51.7 billion or 15.7 percent of the total Budget has been dedicated to the health sector for 2020. Of this amount, $14.3 billion is budgeted for the procurement of drugs and medical supplies.
Corrective action to facilitate the procurement of emergency supplies of drugs and medical supplies, to the tune of $3.2 billion, is underway, and a full review of quantification and procurement practices is being currently undertaken, as the PPP/C has stated that there is a lack of evidence of any purchased drugs and medical supplies since 2017.
