Two areas of great wastage

Over the past five years, $63 million worth of drugs had to be dumped because they had expired. That’s an average of $12 million a year down the drain at taxpayers’ expense. Patients never got the opportunity to use those drugs. This means Nipdec is importing drugs which are very close to their expiry date.

So I get angry when I see in a newspaper Nipdec officials laughing in the J Hamilton Maurice Room in Parliament. They are laughing as though it’s business as usual after throwing away $63 million in expired pharmaceuticals.

What I am livid about is Nipdec has put no system in place to arrest this gross wastage. So more wastage is expected in the future.

Another area of wastage in this country is the construction industry.

If Habitat for Humanity together with the National Gas Company can build three homes with $1 million and supply building material to ten families, why are we spending hundreds of millions to construct a couple houses? Where is all of this money going? Habitat for Humanity ought to be given the contract.

I have said this on many occasions: the Government should not be constructing multimillion homes, only low-cost housing. If a citizen wants a million-dollar home, they should seek out the support of the private sector.

I see newly minted Minister of Works Rohan Sinanan is in support of increased costs for projects. The national bridges programme of 2010 was originally targeted to cost $650 million.

This could increase if the minister has his way. Do we need to spend a billion dollars on bridges? Or should we spread this work over the entire term of the PNM Government? How can we stimulate the construction sector with the Government alone spending all that money? Can’t the private sector also stimulate the economy? Taxpayers’ money is not to spend willy-nilly. We need value for money.

We cannot afford wastage in the building of bridges.

JOHN JESSAMY Fyzabad