Central Medical Stores Trust, the organisation tasked with the procurement and management of the country’s medical supplies were pressured by the Prime Minister into corruptly awarding a corrupt tender worth MK1,455,345,000.00 to Malawi Pharmacy Limited.
Documents reveal that in a deal apparently orchestrated from State House, Central Medical Stores made a no objection request to the office of the Director of Public Procurement on a retrospective basis, long after they had already granted the tender to Malawi Pharmacies Limited.
According to an inside source at Central Medical Stores, the pressure to award the tender to Malawi Pharmacies Limited came from the Prime Minister, who has done business for the company at CMC on several occasions.
Confidential government document in my possession show that Central Medical Trust held a meeting and decided to award the Billion-worth tender to Malawi Pharmacies under the guise of the “Buy Malawian Campaign”. Malawi Pharmacies were a single bidder, contrary to provisions of the Public Procurement Act.
The deal between Central Medical Stores and Malawi Pharmacies was hastily facilitated by State House and was concluded in March 2015.
In May 2015, in order to avoid being found to have done a corrupt deal, Central Medical trust then wrote to the ODPP to try and have the deal sanctioned. The ODPP refused to sanction the procurement and instructed the Central Medical Stores to revoke the award of the tender for being illegal.
It was at this point that serious exchange of words emanated between ODPP, state house and the medical Stores, which resulted in the capitulation of the ODPP after the Prime Minister threatened the Director of Public Procurement that he would be fired.
My sources insist that the Prime Minister was keen on the deal as there was a huge cut waiting for him at the back end soon after the payment went through.
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