RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie have raised an ear­ly alarm over a com­bined $570 mil­lion in un­paid debts for the two min­istries left by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion—funds owed to drug sup­pli­ers, main­te­nance con­trac­tors, and at­tor­neys, which they are now bur­dened to clear.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Bo­doe said $500 mil­lion is cur­rent­ly owed to sup­pli­ers at the Min­istry of Health.

Je­re­mie mean­while said the AG’s Of­fice had an es­ti­mat­ed $70 mil­lion in le­gal fees ow­ing and had al­ready ex­haust­ed its bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion for this fis­cal year.

De­scrib­ing his min­istry’s sit­u­a­tion as wor­ri­some and in need of ur­gent at­ten­tion, Bo­doe said: “I would have in­her­it­ed a debt of 500 mil­lion out­stand­ing to sup­pli­ers, in­clud­ing those who were sup­posed to main­tain the fa­cil­i­ties and so on. That is an on­go­ing prob­lem, and with the re­sources that are avail­able, I will be able to fix these is­sues.”

Asked what im­pact this would have on op­er­a­tions, Bo­doe said, “I have not yet met with the sup­pli­ers. We are in the process of gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion at this point.”

He ex­plained that ad­dress­ing the debt is a pri­or­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause the back­log in­cludes pay­ments for drugs and oth­er med­ical sup­plies.

“There are many chal­lenges. I think the im­me­di­ate chal­lenge is the back­log of pay­ments to sup­pli­ers, es­pe­cial­ly in ar­eas of drugs and sup­plies. I am very con­cerned about that. This Gov­ern­ment has been bor­row­ing mon­ey to buy drugs and sup­plies when pre­vi­ous­ly, when we demit­ted of­fice, that was a di­rect al­lo­ca­tion from the Bud­get. So, what is hap­pen­ing now is that with the loans that have to be paid, the cost of drugs to pa­tients has ac­tu­al­ly in­creased, not on­ly for the cost but al­so with the in­ter­est,” he said.

Bo­doe not­ed that the im­pact of the loans on the min­istry’s abil­i­ty to de­liv­er health­care was a ma­jor con­cern.

“Loans, and that is some­thing that is trou­ble­some. Again, the fi­nal fig­ures — we are look­ing to get that very soon so we can plan the way for­ward.”

He said the fi­nan­cial strain was al­so af­fect­ing staff.

“The morale of staff is de­plet­ed, and we have to look at what we can do to get the staff mo­ti­vat­ed. Yes­ter­day, (Tues­day) there was joy on the faces of peo­ple whom I vis­it­ed.”

On the is­sue of med­ical ed­u­ca­tion, Bo­doe ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment about how fa­cil­i­ties were be­ing used.

“I was very dis­ap­point­ed that an area ear­marked for teach­ing, which was hand­ed over to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, it is now oc­cu­pied by the HR de­part­ment. We will recom­mence talks to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and see how this could be utilised as it was in­tend­ed. Stu­dents and their ac­com­mo­da­tion are be­ing re­viewed in the con­text of the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and the Debe cam­pus. I want to say med­ical ed­u­ca­tion can re­main a source of for­eign ex­change for this coun­try, which is lack­ing.”

He not­ed, how­ev­er, that a clear­er pic­ture of the coun­try’s debts will be re­vealed when the Cab­i­net meets.

“As a Gov­ern­ment, we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to those who have sup­plied their goods and ser­vices, and it is too ear­ly to say what the over­all pic­ture but when Cab­i­net meets, all the Min­is­ters will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to say what is hap­pen­ing and the Prime Min­is­ter can ex­plain the way for­ward,” Bo­doe added.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, for­mer Health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said queries should be di­rect­ed to PS Ali and NIPDEC, adding that he would not en­gage in a pub­lic tit-for-tat with the cur­rent min­is­ter.