DRUGS WORTH MILLIONS ROTTING AT TIA CUSTOMS
18 Nov 2015 | 19:31pm
KATHMANDU, Nov 18: At a time when medical facilities across the country have been reeling under an acute scarcity of medicines, essential drugs worth millions of rupees have been decaying at the customs at Tribhuvan International Airport.
Due to sheer negligence on the part of the government agencies concerned, more than two containers full of life saving medicines have been left abandoned at the airport for over six months now. The medicines were donated by aid agencies in the aftermath of the massive earthquake in April and May, which killed 9,000 people, injured over 23,000 others and displaced more than 200,000.
A highly place source at the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) informed that some of the medicines are close to crossing their use-by dates. MoHP had requested the aid agencies for the essential drugs following the earthquake calamity.
"We do not have money to pay customs duty. So we have been requesting the Ministry of finance (MoF) to waive the customs," said Dr Bhim Singh Tinkery, director at the Logistics Management Division (LMD) of the Department of Health Services (DoHS). He said that the medicines dumped at the airport customs could help ease the ongoing medicine supply crunch at government-run medical facilities. The containers are full of medicines for cancer and other serious diseases.
Reeling under the scarcity of essential medicines and surgical paraphernalia caused by the trade blockade imposed by India on Nepal, several hospitals including Sahid Gangalal National Heart Center (SGNHC) have decided to cut down on the number of surgeries they perform.
According to Dr Tinkery, TIA customs has demanded a tarrif of 10 percent of the price of the medicines, or over Rs 8.8 million. He said the LMD does not even have fuel to bring the medicines from the airport. Last week, an aid agency called up LMDl asking it to take 27 boxes of medicines from TIA customs but LMD did not oblige. "We did not have the fuel to bring those medicines," added Dr Tinkery.
He also informed that LMD has been requesting MoF to waive the customs duty on the medicines.
General Manager (|GM) of TIA, Devananda Upadhyay, confirms that over two containers of medicines have been dumped at the airport for over six months. "The medicines have caused problems for us also. We have asked the agencies concerned at MoHP to take away the medicines," said Upadhyay. He added that no one from MoHP has visited TIA to took at the condition of the essential medicines.
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