Although Pharmaniaga Bhd’s concession will end on Nov 30, the company may still have the upper hand to emerge as winner in the open tender system to be implemented by the government next year.

The company is expected to be a tough competitor in the new tender system, backed by years of experience as concessionaire in the supply and distribution of medicines to government hospitals and clinics nationwide.

The introduction of the new open tender system is laudable but efforts should be made to ensure the system is fair and has a transparent process that rightly rewards the best bid. Its bidding process must be truly open with proper disclosure of the basis on which the winner was chosen. In other words, it must stand up to public scrutiny.

For the time being, the government has decided to temporarily extend Pharmaniaga’s services for 25-months from Dec 1, 2019 to Dec 31, 2021 to ensure no disruption in medical supplies and health services to government facilities nationwide.

The Cabinet also needs time to come up with a mechanism to manage the new open tender system likely to be implemented somewhere in the 1st quarter of 2020.

In addition, Pharmaniaga was awarded a five-year contract extension to provide logistics and distribution (L&D) services to Ministry of Health up to end-December 2024.