P.M. calls for “full-scale audit”
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Hon. Dean Barrow told Amandala today that he is calling on the Board of Directors of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH) to act immediately against the person or persons who oversaw purchases of supplies from the private sector that were made at “absolutely unjustifiable and unsustainable prices,” absent a good explanation from them.
His comments to us were made prior to today’s release of the preliminary audit report conducted by Donna Crawford-Smith of the Ministry of Finance and Randolph Young and Charles Flowers of the Audit Department over the course of last week.
Amandala contacted the Prime Minister at his Belmopan office this morning, a few hours before the 3:00 p.m. release of the statement from his office with the accompanying audit report.
Meanwhile, according to Amandala sources, a meeting scheduled for today between Labour Commissioner Ivan Williams and the executives of both the Belize Medical and Dental Union (BMDU) and Karl Heusner produced no solution to the standoff between them, now closing its thirteenth day.
A late evening press release jointly written and signed by Dr. Ricardo Fabro, the chair of the Board;
Dr. John Sosa, president of the Union; and Labour Commissioner Ivan Williams, states simply that “several issues were tabled and an agreement was reached to continue discussions at a subsequent meeting to be held on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009.”
The Prime Minister told us that there is nothing in the report to indict Dr. Fabro. The release more specifically states, “The preliminary findings contain not the slightest suggestion that… Dr. Fabro was involved in any wrongdoing,” despite the accusations of the BMDU against him and their calls for him to be fired.
Dr. Fabro has been under intense pressure to explain both the hospital’s reasoning in purchasing more than 50% of its supplies from private suppliers, most notably De La Fuente Pharmacy of Orange Walk Town, and his own apparent involvement in the Ministry of Health’s granting of a $700,000 contract for supplies in 2008 to a company run by his wife out of their Orange Walk home. Dr. Fabro has consistently denied wrongdoing.
(We note at this point that the pharmacy referred to above and below is operated from offices on Main Street and Queen Victoria Avenue and is owned by Antonio Giovanni de la Fuente (It is listed in the BTL phone book under “De La Fuente Drug Store”, at #16 Main Street). The De La Fuente Pharmacy listed at #11 Fonseca Street in the BTL phone book is owned by Antonio’s brother, Phillip – mayor of Orange Walk – but is a retail-only facility and, to the best of our knowledge, is not in any way connected to this story.)
The statement agrees that the Union was able to substantiate its claim that “purchases were made by KHMH for prices far higher than those for similar pharmaceuticals supplied by contractors that had won tenders from the Ministry of Health.”
However, according to Hon. Barrow, the high prices paid for some purchases made privately as compared to those Government makes during the tendering process for medical supplies and equipment can be explained by the difference in prices quoted for wholesale purchases and retail purchases.
However, the Prime Minister told us that he was concerned about three or four purchases, all involving De La Fuente Pharmacy, in which the difference in price was “absolutely unjustifiable and unsustainable.”
The release claims that it was “unclear” why the hospital took until March of this year to install a system of securing multiple written quotations from individual retailers, then selecting the lowest, admitting that complaints of corruption were “given legitimacy” by this deficiency as well as the “extremely inflated” prices paid.
A full-scale audit of the organization will now proceed, with the report to be submitted to the Belize Medical and Dental Union (BMDU), which originated the complaints.
Union president Dr. John Sosa is yet to respond to the release of the report despite several telephone calls and messages left by Amandala since morning. None of the other participants in today’s meeting were available for comment.
(An analysis of the report can be found elsewhere in this issue of Amandala.)