RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Even as mil­lions of dol­lars in for­eign ex­change are spent on im­port­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, gaps in over­sight and co­or­di­na­tion be­tween State agen­cies are cre­at­ing con­di­tions ripe for abuse, in­clud­ing over­pric­ing and cor­rup­tion, House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh warned.

Singh raised con­cerns dur­ing the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Com­mit­tee (PAAC)meet­ing yes­ter­day.

He ques­tioned Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms and Ex­cise, Ri­ad Ju­man, on the ab­sence of ba­sic safe­guards link­ing Cus­toms, the Chem­istry, Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion (CFDD), and the Ex­im­Bank.

He said that while Cus­toms is the sole au­thor­i­ty reg­u­lat­ing im­ports at the ports, the di­vi­sion does not have ac­cess to a com­pre­hen­sive list of ap­proved phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals from the CFDD.

This, he said, un­der­mines Cus­toms’ abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly po­lice what en­ters the coun­try and opens the sys­tem to abuse.

Ju­man con­firmed that Cus­toms has no ac­cess to a sin­gle, com­pre­hen­sive list of reg­is­tered phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and must in­stead re­ly on case-by-case con­sul­ta­tion with CFDD once ship­ments ar­rive.

“Yes, Cus­toms does not have a list pro­vid­ed by Chem­istry, Food and Drugs that would al­low us to im­me­di­ate­ly de­ter­mine whether a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal is ap­proved or not,” Ju­man said.

He ex­plained that Cus­toms’ role be­gins on­ly af­ter goods ar­rive and de­c­la­ra­tions are made, not­ing that ap­provals grant­ed pri­or to im­por­ta­tion, in­clud­ing those for for­eign ex­change, fall out­side Cus­toms’ re­mit.

Singh said the ab­sence of such a list was trou­bling, giv­en that phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals au­to­mat­i­cal­ly trig­ger scruti­ny with­in Cus­toms’ sys­tems and Cus­toms is unique­ly po­si­tioned as the “guardian of the ports.”

“Cus­toms has enor­mous pow­er, but no way of know­ing be­fore­hand whether an item be­ing im­port­ed is on the ap­proved list?” Singh asked. “That does not con­duce to good pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Adding to the con­cern, Singh high­light­ed that there is no mech­a­nism for ver­i­fy­ing whether the amount of for­eign ex­change al­lo­cat­ed by Ex­im­Bank for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal im­ports match­es the val­ue of goods ac­tu­al­ly cleared through Cus­toms.

Ju­man con­firmed that Cus­toms does not rou­tine­ly share C75 and C82 de­c­la­ra­tion forms with Ex­im­Bank, mean­ing there is no au­to­mat­ic rec­on­cil­i­a­tion be­tween forex al­lo­ca­tions and im­port val­ues.

“Yes, Chair, there is no cor­re­la­tion,” Ju­man said.

Singh warned that this dis­con­nect cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ties for over-in­voic­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly since most phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals are du­ty- and VAT-free.

“If an item costs ten dol­lars, it can be in­voiced for twen­ty to ob­tain dou­ble the for­eign ex­change,” Singh said, adding that Cus­toms’ sys­tems are pri­mar­i­ly de­signed to de­tect un­der-in­voic­ing, not over-in­voic­ing.

Ju­man agreed, con­ced­ing that over-in­voic­ing linked to abuse of for­eign ex­change al­lo­ca­tions is not some­thing Cus­toms has his­tor­i­cal­ly fo­cused on.

“Yes, chair, I agree,” he said, pledg­ing to in­ves­ti­gate over­pric­ing and en­gage stake­hold­ers to clamp down on cor­rup­tion.

Mean­while, Chief Chemist and act­ing di­rec­tor of CFDD, Has­math Ali, con­firmed that al­though more than 21,000 drugs are reg­is­tered in Trinidad and To­ba­go, there is no sin­gle pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble list.

Ali said drugs are ap­proved and pub­lished in­cre­men­tal­ly in the Na­tion­al Gazette, mean­ing im­porters must search gazettes dat­ing back decades to de­ter­mine whether a drug is reg­is­tered.

“There is no one com­pre­hen­sive list avail­able to the pub­lic or to Cus­toms at this time,” Ali said.

Singh de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as un­ten­able, ar­gu­ing that the lack of trans­paren­cy dis­ad­van­tages im­porters and the pub­lic, while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for non-ap­proved drugs to en­ter the mar­ket.

Ali said CFDD is work­ing on a mul­ti-data­base on­line sys­tem, ex­pect­ed to be launched by the end of the first quar­ter, which would make reg­is­tra­tion in­for­ma­tion pub­licly avail­able. He ac­knowl­edged, how­ev­er, that the list should have been shared with Cus­toms long ago.

Dr Mar­lene Attz, who al­so ques­tioned of­fi­cials, said the frag­ment­ed sys­tem raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about val­ue for mon­ey and ac­count­abil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly where pri­vate im­porters pur­chase drugs with­out pri­or ap­proval.

“This lack of co­or­di­na­tion is clear­ly con­ducive to abuse,” Singh said.

He man­dat­ed the Comp­trol­ler to use his statu­to­ry pow­ers to in­ves­ti­gate over-in­voic­ing and po­ten­tial cor­rup­tion in the for­eign ex­change sys­tem.