By Pemphero Malimba:
Forex shortage, which has hit at the heart of industry, now threatens the very system that sustains life: health.
The development has since jerked the Parliamentary Committee on Health, which has announced that it has the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) on its radar.
Committee chairperson Anthony Masamba told this publication on Wednesday that they have decided to act on the issue.
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Masamba said it was unfortunate that the Central Medical Stores Trust (CMST) was failing to procure drugs from foreign suppliers due to forex shortages.
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He said, at the same time, the country continued to import second-hand motor vehicles.
“There are reports that we, as a country, import at least 27,000 cars every month and that means forex is being spend on the importation of cars.
“When it comes to drugs, we don’t have forex,” Masamba said.
He said the committee wanted to appreciate contributing factors to the trend.
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“What is happening? That is why we want to learn from the Reserve Bank of Malawi, [in terms of] how they are managing the importation of cars vs the importation of drugs,” he said.
“We, as a committee, can’t afford to have a drug shortage when car dealers are managing to import the cars. We feel that the priorities are outside down,” Masamba said.
Since early this year, Malawi has been facing the problem of shortage of drugs in public hospitals.
This has been attributed to failure by the government, through CMST, to pay $18 million, in the form of debt, to foreign suppliers.
According to the trust, medicines’ availability in the country is currently at less than 50 percent.
“[The rate is] even lower for the central hospitals, around 20-25 percent. This is linked to the fact [that] we are unable to pay our foreign suppliers, who are holding a lot of medicines,” CMST Chief Executive Officer Moses Chisale said.
Chisale said this in an interview after testifying in the ongoing investigation into the alleged theft, falsified and substandard drugs in public health facilities.
He said the trust was prioritising the procurement of drugs from local manufacturers.
“As you might have seen, we, together with the Minister of Health, went to the local manufacturers to see what they have in stock, what they can produce and what kind of arrangements can be there between them and us,” he said.
He said following the visits, some manufacturers had started manufacturing medical supplies for the trust.
“There are some products that are being manufactured by all the local manufacturers while other products are being produced by one manufacturer. We are now looking inside to see what contribution local manufacturers can make to our stocks at the Central Medical Stores Trust,” Chisale said.
