Three years after starting the experiments in purchasing medicines and other health supplies, it is seen that the current government has not finished testing new methods for its acquisitions.
We are already in the middle of the six-year term and it cannot be seen when Q4 will be able to establish a comprehensive, clear and consolidated scheme as promised, and to cover smoothly the supply of supplies as fundamental as those of its medical institutions. has sought to test a new purchasing exercise, the scheme towards 2022 will not be the exception.
It seems that now they will be parallel purchases and there may be an interesting competition between two teams. Insabi with the Ministry of Health will do theirs and UNOPS will do theirs. Besides, as if things weren’t already complicated, a strong player who seems to play his game alone will be left out: Petróleos Mexicanos on his side – pressured by his union – will also play his game.
Insabi’s official letter with the dates of its calls was issued as wanting to no longer include UNOPS, but the United Nations body is well planted with the certainty that the signed agreement has not been broken and, therefore, will participate in said purchases . We learned from sources close to the process that Insabi and UNOPS are negotiating which products and keys each will acquire.
UNOPS is already planning its next briefing before the end of November, where it expects Insabi and Cofepris executives to be present. There it is expected that they will give details of the purchase that will be to cover the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023. The question is which part they will leave to UNOPS and whether it will buy both generic and patent products or from a single supplier.
The slope of transparency
The difficulties in which UNOPS is involved in Mexico are not minor because, on the one hand, it is obliged to carry out the purchase in a way that is now more efficient and expeditious. This time, it will not take 10 months for the process, since it will be practically competing with the Mexican team that will want to demonstrate how it is the most efficient.
On the other hand, UNOPS must respond to the demands of being transparent in its numbers.
The Institute for Access to Information (INAI) has been demanding that the people of Rogelio Ramírez de la O in the Ministry of Finance open the report of the purchase made by UNOPS, but here it depends on whether the Insabi allows breaking with the clause of confidentiality included in the agreement with UNOPS. Here Insabi has the ball, as he is the one who put his signature and he has to give his permission to be in favor of transparency instead of confidentiality.
The case has become a mess, but it is important in several respects. Mexican society has every right to request transparency regarding what the Mexican State has paid for a service to a foreign entity. And apart from asking for total clarity and detail about the public resources exercised by said body.
The Presidency announced in 2020 that it would be more than 125,000 million pesos for purchases from 2021-2024 (the equivalent of more than 6,000 million dollars). How much of this corresponded to fiscal year 2021? It is about what is not known.
In this sense are the questions that the INAI has not yet found an answer to. The Treasury is the one that knows the data but has given several arguments for not responding. Here the intervention of the former INAI commissioner María Elena Pérez Jaen was important support: it allowed us to understand why neither SHCP nor UNOPS can hide behind diplomatic immunity so as not to be held accountable for the use of public resources for the purchase of medicines made by UNOPS.
We know that the matter is already on the desk of Grete Faremo in Sweden, the head of UNOPS, and they are already analyzing the matter on how to respond to that demand for transparency.
Journalist on economics and health issues
Health and Business
Communicator specialized in public health and the health industry. Studying a master’s degree in Health Systems Administration at FCA of UNAM.
Founder in 2004 of www.Plenilunia.com, a concept on women’s health. I am passionate about researching and reporting on health, innovation, the science-related industry, and finding an objective business approach to each topic.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx