Dr Ahmadou Lamin Samateh ,The minister Of health
By Ramatoulie Jawo
The Minister of Health, Dr. Ahmadou Lamin Samateh, recently discussed the challenges faced by his ministry in the drug procurement process during a meeting with the National Assembly’s Select Committee on Health. The session, which was focused on addressing issues related to drug availability in public healthcare facilities, brought to light several key concerns regarding the procurement system.
Dr. Samateh explained that while the Gambian Public Procurement Authority (GPPA) system is designed to promote accountability and transparency, it presents significant delays, particularly in the procurement of medicines. The process, he noted, involves numerous stages—from quantification, document preparation, and GPPA approval, to committee meetings and contract signings—each of which can take up to six months. As a result, the procurement cycle is often protracted, sometimes extending well into the third quarter of the following year before supplies arrive in The Gambia.
“The back and forth, the timeliness of quantification, the preparation of bidding documents, the sending of bidding documents to GPPA to get approval and bringing it back to the contract’s committee meetings, advertisements, valuation of the bidding documents, the selections processes, the contract signing, the release of funds from ministry of finance all takes a lot of time. It sometimes takes up to 6 months before a contracting entity could be allowed to send the lists of drugs to the manufacturing companies overseas. This method is challenging,” he said.
He explained that if procurement were to begin in 2025, it would take until the third quarter of the year for everyone to receive the supplies or for the items to arrive in The Gambia.
Dr. Samateh emphasized that beyond these delays, their biggest challenge has been the unreliability of suppliers.
He noted that when tenders are issued through international competitive bidding, multiple suppliers participate, undergo assessments and evaluations, and winners are selected accordingly.
However, he pointed out that in recent years, the suppliers awarded the largest contracts—mostly Gambians—have failed to deliver on time.
“This current supplies that we are expecting are for 2024, now some of the suppliers did supply in time in fact when they got contracts they supply even before they got paid. They mobilized because they have capacity,” he said.
He added that some suppliers not only fail to deliver on time but also withdraw after winning bids.
“The other one is having the capacity for drugs but after winning the contracts now the suppliers came to say he wants A, B and C to be modified for him. So these are some of the problems we face, and of course we refused to do such.
“So what really affects drug suppliers in this country mainly is the procurement methods and the unreliability of suppliers most of whom are Gambians this is our main problem,” he told members. Dr. Samateh informed the committee that in 2024, a total of 45 containers—both 40-foot and 20-foot—arrived in The Gambia, with 40% procured by his ministry in collaboration with other partners.
“Through the airport 121 consignments and 10% were procured by the ministry and by road six trucks lots of medications and other items came, all these were procured by the ministry of health. This includes a lot of life-saving items. And a lot of life-saving items are present in the country as we speak looking at what is in our stock up to 40 percent of the essential medicines are available in the country, and they are in stock,” he said.
He stressed the importance of distinguishing these medicines from those hospitals procure independently.
“So in the hospitals we expect more than 40 percent of essential drugs to be available i can attest to that myself I have been going around the hospitals and each time I enter their hospital stores I see in fact drugs in all the groups like the hypertensive you will see the drugs the antihypertensive drugs, antibiotics, antidiabetic drugs and so many other drugs so for each category drugs are available.” he told the members.
Samateh also highlighted that despite a fourfold increase in the health budget, the allocated funds can only cover 30% of the Gambia’s national medicine requirements.