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Reproductive health service provider Banja La Mtsogolo (BLM) has been selling drugs that are near expiry period to private clinics and consumers without a valid commercial licence from the Pharmacy, Medicines and Poisons Board.
Investigations by Nation Online indicate that BLM has also been selling the drugs without the knowledge of its funding partners, the Department for International Aid Development (DFID).
BLM is reported to have advertised for the post of a Sales Representative to be selling ‘pharmaceutical goods’ in the local press two years ago under a voucher, to conceal the identity of the organisation.
Police sources said the sales representative has been selling the drugs to various private clinics and individuals throughout the country.
“There have been instances where the sales representative has failed to sell the drugs after some organisations demanded the certificate to sell the drugs,” said the source.
Insiders confided to Nation Online that it was management that decided to sell the drugs instead of throwing them away after they expire and decided to do it silently without DFID knowing.
Deputy Registrar of Pharmacy, Medicines and Poisons Board Wynn Chalira said they registered BLM to be supplying drugs to their own clinics.
“But we did not give them a licence to be selling drugs straight to consumers because that would fall under the commercial licence and we could not give them that because they are not a commercial entity and they do not even have a pharmacist there,” said Chalira.
BLM Programme Director Walker Jiyani admitted that BLM has been selling drugs which were about to expire and insisted that it has a licence to sell drugs.
“I know for sure that some of the drugs that have expired have been disposed of. But if some are closer to expiry date, we make an attempt to realise as much as possible from the drugs by selling them,” said Jiyani.
“Every programme in MSI [disposes of] drugs instead of waiting for them to rot. In fact we had an MSI team here and their advice was we must realise as much as possible out of the drugs, so that is not BLM position alone but it’s within the partnership. You can’t allow a donation to expire and you do nothing about it,” added Jiyani.
Jiyani said the drugs it is selling are from a consignment that came in 1999 and was stuck at Beira and when they arrived, some of them had already started losing life.
He also said the advert of the sales representative was not to conceal that BLM is selling drugs, saying the organisation uses vouchers on adverts most of the times.
Jiyani said all the money that is realised from the sale of drugs goes into projects.
The drugs scam has come to light following the arrest on Monday of a former employee of BLM who police say is connected to the scam.
Julia Kemp at DFID declined to comment on the matter when contacted Tuesday, saying Susan Mshana or George Mussa were the right people to comment.
The two could not be reached as we went to press.
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