The Ministry of Health on Tuesday held the third conference for procurement, contract management and purchases.
Problems regarding procurement, maintenance and cleaning contracts were resolved by the ministry and its counterparts.
Dr. Salah Al-Mazrou, deputy minister for procurement and engineering affairs, outlined the problems in his address before the conference.
“Sometimes, the prices of these contracts are inflated. Sometimes they contain items that are clearly unwarranted. Other departments in the ministry, especially the medical supplies department and warehouses, face problems too. We asked for bids to build 129 warehouses, some of which began to fail right away. We knew why and we are working to avoid the causes,” he said.
“There has been a marked improvement in the quality of the medicines procured by the ministry, and their prices have tended to go down too. But sometimes we have a glut of medicines in our warehouses, which would make some of them expire before there is a chance to use them,” he said.
“We have raised our real-time planning efforts between the various departments. The procurement department and the purchasing department, together with warehousing, are now coordinating their efforts for optimal use and procurement of medicines,” he added.
“We are working on an automated system that uses the computer to achieve synergy between the various departments,” he said.
MoH tackles procurement and contract processes
