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Government’s drug purchases are set to come under intense scrutiny again when deliberations on the 2013 estimates of the National Budget begin on Monday.This year, Government has hiked the estimates for purchases to $4.6B, up $275M above last year’s voted amount.For the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) $1.8B has been set aside – up from the $1.67B spent last year. The remaining $2.8B is for the different programmes under the Ministry of Health.Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ RamroopThis particular expense has been a contentious one for a number of years after revelations that one company with close ties to former President Bharrat Jagdeo, benefitted from billions of dollars in contracts to supply drugs and medical supplies.Other suppliers have complained that they were sidelined with the pre-qualification process rigged in favour of New GPC, the company at the centre of the controversy.According to officials of both A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) and Alliance For Change (AFC), the two opposition parties in the National Assembly, they are highly interested in how government spent the billions last year.In recent years, New GPC received almost 80 per cent of the total budgeted sum, annually, for drug purchases and other supplies.Government faced tough questions over the drug deals especially after several “incestuous” transactions raised the hackles of the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which is controlled by the Opposition.While government has steadfastly defended the purchases from New GPC, the deal in itself suggested that New GPC was treated in a preferential manner, even being advanced hundreds of millions of dollars. In one case no evidence was found that the company delivered any drug.There are indications, too, that New GPC was not required to even lodge a performance bond, as is standard practice, leaving Government out in the cold when it came to claiming back monies for non-performance on the contracts.Earlier this year, it was disclosed that New GPC had landed another sweetheart deal. In addition to supplying drugs, it charged Government almost $100M over a period of time to rent storage space to the Ministry of Health. That arrangement only ended last December.Former President,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, Bharrat JagdeoNew GPC, in attempting to cover up that lucrative deal, had always been claiming that it was providing free warehousing.In 2010, New GPC failed to deliver over $200M in drugs.In early 2010, the Cabinet under the Jagdeo administration questionably decided that New GPC would be the sole supplier of drugs, angering other local suppliers.In recent times, there have been increasing calls for the drugs purchases to be investigated fully but government has refused to budge.