Borneo Pharmaceuticals
Borneo Pacific Pharmaceuticals Ltd (BPP) was established in 1996 by naturalised citizen Martin Poh. The company was an agent and distributor of pharmaceutical and health-care products in PNG. According to the company’s website it is a wholesaler supplier to markets in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
In December 2013 the company was thrown into the spotlight when the Australian government withdrew from a $38 million drug supplies program, after the PNG Government’s Central Supply and Tenders Board (CSTB) awarded a contract to supply medical kits to BPP (Cochrane, 2013). The PNG National Doctors Association (NDA) expressed concerns at the CSTB decision in January 2014 after it was revealed that the ISO 9001 accreditation requirements was removed (The National, 2014).
In April 2014 the Community Coalition Against Corruption – led by Transparency International PNG and the Media Council of PNG (MCPNG) – condemned the contract and asked that the company’s manufacturing facilities is visited by authorities (National, The National, 2014).
The public outcry compelled the PNG Government to send a delegation to Malaysia in April 2014 to inspect the packaging factory where the medical kits are assembled (EMTV, EMTV, 2014).
In May 2014 the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) held an inquiry to ascertain how the contract was awarded (EMTV, EMTV, 2014).
In March 2017 the acting CSTB chair and Department of Finance Secretary, Dr Ken Ngangan, revealed that the BPP contract expired in March this year. The Office of the State Solicitors advice against the extension of the firm’s contract after it expired in November last year (Kuku, 2017).
The BPP medical supplies controversy raises questions about the procurement system used by the CSTB and whether the process was competitive enough to enable the purchase of quality drugs at the lowest possible cost.
There have been calls in the health sector in the past for a commission of inquiry to investigate the CSTB and how it conducted its business.
