Ramjattan’s best friend Lloyd Singh supplied expired drugs to hospital

Lloyd Singh

(Eyewitness)Khemraj Ramjattan is a lawyer by profession. When he’s wearing his other hat as a politician, he should remember this fact. When he makes utterances, he does so with such alarming frequency, he brings the entire legal fraternity into disrepute. We know he has no pride, but one wonders if he has no shame also.

Using the excuse of the expired drugs found by a parliamentary committee – which included Indra Chandrapal of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) – Ramjattan launched an attack on the Ministry of Health that demonstrated an inexcusable lack of knowledge about the supply of drugs to hospitals.

So what’s his solution to the problem of expired drugs? “We would like to see quality drugs placed on the shelf with long shelf lives,” he intoned. We know you, dear reader, must have exclaimed, “What kind of nonsense is this?” But we kid you not. This is exactly what this Ramjattan said. I mean…surely Ramjattan can’t actually believe that manufacturers of pharmaceuticals package some drugs with “long shelf lives” and others with “short shelf lives”?

If he does then he ought to be committed to that institution near the Canje Bridge. All drugs have their particular period in which they degrade to a point where they lose their efficacy. Because we’re not dealing with rum, with which Ramjattan may have greater familiarity, we have to inform him that you don’t age pharmaceuticals so that they have “long shelf lives”. Each chemical spontaneously decomposes based on its chemical stability and the ambient conditions.

Ramjattan couldn’t resist also making a crack about NEW GPC INC and “sole sourcing” even though the auditor general’s report explained the difference between that concept, pre-qualified bidders, and providing proprietary (patented) formulations. He, however, disingenuously refused to reveal that the actual expired and possibly overstocked drugs found at the hospital were all supplied by his friend and supporter – who last year billed the Ministry of Health for a cool $512 million.

NOTE: The supporter and friend in question is Lloyd Singh. Singh is a businessman of questionable character and owner of IPA Pharmaceuticals. He bankrolls the AFC and is very close to its leader Khemraj Ramjattan. He  recently feted Ramjattan and his wife at and city restaurant and also owns a rumshop in Ogle at which himself and fellow AFC member Sasenarine Singh were involved in a fist fight a while back.