The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) in conjunction with Transparency International Nigeria, on Thursday, raised the alarm that Nigeria is losing around N8.5bn every time the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) procures HIV/Aids drugs through private contractors.
Addressing newsmen in Lagos, on Thursday, the Executive Director, CISLAC, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), lamented that for the past five years, NACA has been procuring HIV/AIDS drugs through one company.
According to the CISLAC Executive Director, “While international treaties and governments across the world recognize adequate, accessible and affordable health care as a fundamental human right, medicine financing in Nigeria is generally out-of-pocket. The continued rise in price has made many essential and prescription medications unaffordable, and therefore inaccessible, by quite a large number of Nigerians, who live below the poverty line. This without a doubt comes with grave consequences of morbidity and mortality to consumers of health care products in Nigeria.
“The non-affordability triggered by high production and supply costs encourages the sale of fake and substandard drugs in the country, while consumers who are compelled to seek cheaper drug alternatives ceaselessly fall prey to fake and substandard drugs with damage to their health.
“As the Nigerian government struggles to sustain the provision of free antiretroviral drugs as part of HIV programmes at health facilities in the country for an estimated 3.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS, this effort is mostly sabotaged by inflated prices quoted by supplying contractors, whose activities render government’s effort inadequate to eliminate the high and sometimes inequitable economic burden of HIV/AIDS on households.”
He added that the exorbitant prices quoted by existing contractors rendered government financially incapacitated to adequately provide for, and make anti-retroviral drugs accessible across health care facilities with negative effects on stocks thus increasing health hazards and relapse of illnesses.
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According to him, “We observed the strong resistance by some contractors with support of some insiders to prevent the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) from buying HIV drugs directly from original manufacturers which allow the government to put more people on treatment.
“The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)/Transparency International Nigeria is perturbed by the continued but unchecked attitudes of the fraudulent contractors, whose unlawful activities hitherto dominate the procurement process of NACA.
“Giving the existing cost-efficient practice by the United States Government and Global Fund involving the direct purchase of the drugs from the manufacturers, we are worried by the ill-informed, pocket-serving and discrediting petitions by some vested interest, who have endlessly benefited from inflated prices of the drugs in the last five (5) years, to discourage the ongoing effort of NACA to directly source the drugs primarily for sustainability and wider coverage.”
Musa said his organisation and Transparency International Nigeria gathered that the contractors were selling the anti-retroviral drugs at $13 per patient as against $7 given by the manufacturers, thereby making $6 per patient on an estimated 3.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS (N8,518,800,000.00).
He added that “Corruption in the treatment of HIV/AIDS is not different from the corruption in the health sector. In 2003, Nigeria’s ARV programmes attracted much criticism when treatment centres were alleged to be handing out expired drugs and rejecting patients.
“In a detailed investigative news report of December 28, 2018, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) revealed that hundreds of millions of naira released for HIV campaigns, counselling and testing services might have ended in private pockets of contractors and government officials, as companies were specifically registered to siphon funds meant to save the lives of the infected.
“We, therefore, call on the Federal Government to Insist that fraudulent contractors who undermine the Public Procurement Act must be thoroughly scrutinized and discouraged from defrauding the government through inflated anti-retroviral drugs supply services.
“We also call on the newly appointed Director-General of NACA to engage stringent reforms in the Agency’s procurement process for impactful, efficient and cost-effective wider and sustainable service delivery in Nigeria.”
Nigeria loses N8.5bn
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