Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12070

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Malingha D.
Blacklisted Firm Among Key Drug Suppliers
The East African 2007 Nov 12
http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/15453.html

Full text:

Nairobi (Kenya) – Warning lights are flashing all over Uganda on the safety of drugs used in the country after it emerged that the National Drug Authority approved Ningbo Pharmaceuticals – a company blacklisted in China and several other countries – to be one of the suppliers of both human and veterinary drugs.

The EastAfrican has learnt that the firm was thrown out of Nigeria by drug regulator National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control and other countries for negligence and selling fake drugs. According to John Odit, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises, an official in charge of quality control at NDA – who refused to approve the listing – was subsequently dismissed for what the regulator termed insubordination.

“They fired the official because he refused to compromise his profession,”
he said. These revelations were contained in the Auditor General’s special audit report on the country’s drug regulatory body. The parliamentary committee has taken up the case and summoned the accounting officers at NDA to explain the irregularity. On two occasions now, NDA executive secretary Apollo Muhairwe has failed to appear before the committee, as he has been out of the country on official duty.

NDA is authorised to regularly do due diligence of companies that manufacture drugs and upon passing the quality test, are listed as fit to sell drugs to chemists and pharmacies in the country. It regulates products including pharmaceuticals and vaccines for humans and animals, herbal medicines, medical devices and apparatus, diagnostic equipment reagents and chemicals and nutritional substances. To its credit, NDA has over the past five years, developed clear guidelines for registering medicines, equipment and other medical products.

It has also done a drug registration exercise to ensure that all pharmaceutical products approved for use in Uganda meet all the laid down requirements. Consumer associations have warned that fake drugs are being sold in the country. The Auditor General’s report reveals that over Ush430 million ($255,000) was unaccounted for at the NDA between 2004 and 2007. Of this, $232,011 was outrightly embezzled, while banking slips totalling $23,920 could not be traced to banks they claim to have banked in, meaning that they could have been forged.

The report also says that record keeping at NDA is sorely lacking and often mediocre. For instance, numerous receipts were duplicated, not posted or wrongly posted, while some bank deposits were not receipted.

The report said these anomalies exposed the organisation to misappropriation and under declaration of income revenue. It also emerged that NDA did not have an internal audit system, which let several errors go through unnoticed. For instance, there was no evidence of independent checks in bank reconciliations, surprise cash counts and regular ledger reconciliations.

Among the reasons advanced for the anomalies is inadequate technical finance staff. After the head of finance department left the organisation, the senior accountant took up the position in an acting capacity and retained his original position. This went on for a long time, giving him the leeway to flout many authorisation requirements.