Ken Ali

There was squan­der­ma­nia with the pur­chase of gloves. That, at least, is the al­le­ga­tion of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, who, in his an­ti-cor­rup­tion trea­tise yes­ter­day, told of "col­lu­sion" in the pur­chase of la­tex gloves. Ram­lo­gan's de­c­la­ra­tion was sup­port­ed by a let­ter, dat­ed Ju­ly 14, 2010, in which one sup­pli­er, Phar­ma­co, ques­tioned the de­ci­sion to award a con­tract for sim­i­lar items at a cost of 50 per cent high­er.

The AG's of­fice made the let­ter avail­able to the Guardian last night.

Ram­lo­gan told the Sen­ate the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nipdec) award­ed two con­tracts on Jan­u­ary 12 for the sup­ply of gloves. He said that 50 per cent of the con­tract went to each com­pa­ny.

Ram­lo­gan said: "One of the com­pa­nies was Phar­ma­co, which sup­plied the gloves at the price of $17.50. "The oth­er com­pa­ny was Sun Crest In­ter­na­tion­al Lim­it­ed, which sup­plied the gloves for $27.80. "That is 50 per cent high­er than Phar­ma­co. And for the same gloves." He claimed that the gloves sup­plied by Sun Crest "were of a low­er grade of la­tex."

The re­sult, ac­cord­ing to Ram­lo­gan, is that "tax­pay­ers are pay­ing high­er than the ad­just­ed mar­ket val­ue for gloves."