For­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says the Gov­ern­ment must ex­am­ine the dis­pos­al of an es­ti­mat­ed $80 mil­lion in ex­pired phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

In June, it was re­vealed that the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NIPDEC) dis­posed of these items be­tween 2020 and 2025.

This fol­lows Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe’s re­quest for a re­port from NIPDEC out­lin­ing the val­ue of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and non-phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal items dis­card­ed dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

On Tues­day, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor and Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee mem­ber Dr Mar­lene Attzs said there is no need to ques­tion for­mer Health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh on the mat­ter.

Speak­ing at a PNM me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Im­bert said the is­sue stems from con­trac­tu­al agree­ments.

“It is a big prob­lem. Ap­par­ent­ly in­ter­na­tion­al sup­pli­ers force lo­cal agents to take huge quan­ti­ties of drugs, not in fi­nan­cial in­ter­est to sup­ply small quan­ti­ties… and these things are very dan­ger­ous,” he said.

Im­bert al­so said con­cerns over a drug mo­nop­oly should be ad­dressed with the Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion or the Health Min­is­ter.