Don’t blame me, says Labour Principal Secretary Peter Tum, who has been accused of being responsible for the wastage of pentavalent vaccines worth Sh180 million.
The 6.1 tonne consignment of 2,280,000 doses of pentavalent vaccine was brought into the country in 2017, but expired the following year at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) because authorities failed to clear the cargo.
Mr Tum said on Friday that the vaccines were procured before he joined the Ministry of Health — on March 3, 2017.
Documents seen by the Saturday Nation show that the vaccines were procured in February 2017, when Mr Tum was the Director Kenya Medical Training College.
However, according to highly placed sources at the Afya House, it is during his tenure that the conversation about the clearance of the vaccines picked up after stalling for a year, but he never acted.
They said Mr Tum failed to act even after being alerted about the consignment through memos on three occasions.
“I want to assume that when the vaccines were brought into the country, there was a PS in the office who sanctioned the shipment. If the vaccines came in February 2017, why were they not cleared, clearance takes at most three weeks, why did they have to wait for a whole year for Tum to be blamed for their expiry?” he said in his defence.
“I know when I join a ministry, I inherit everything. However, I came in the 2017/2018 financial year — was the clearance fee budgeted for in the last financial year? If yes, why was the clearance firm not paid?”
When asked what he did after inheriting the problem, Mr Tum said he sought advice from technocrats in the ministry.
“When you inherit an issue, you must refer to the previous correspondence and being that I was not in the office and the technocrats were in the office, I handed over to them. I stayed in the ministry for one year and left for Labour,” he said.
He said he was not aware that the issue was not solved, until he learnt about it in the media when he was being blamed for the expiry of the vaccines.
“To my shock, I was to blame,” he said.
Pentavalent, also known as a five-in-one vaccine, donated by the Serum Institute India, is currently in the country’s immunization programme. It prevents five major diseases — haemophilus influenza type B (the bacteria that causes meningitis, pneumonia and otitis media – ear infection), diptheria, whooping cough, hepatitis B, tetanus and other ailments.
Subsequently, the vaccine held at the Swissport terminal had its shelf life end in April 2018, by which time the vaccine had lost viability, six months to the expiry date of October 2018.
“When I got into the office, there was one month left for the expiry of the vaccines. The vaccines had a shelf life of one year as per the Ministry of Health, why didn’t the previous officers act? I am being blamed for the one month?" Mr Tum asked.
Protect women and children
The 6.1 tonnes of 2,280,000 doses of pentavalent vaccine were brought into the country in February 2017. They have since stayed at Swiss port warehouses up to date until they have gone bad.
The vaccines were to help protect women and children from five deadly diseases. However, with the expiry, it means that millions of mothers missed the chance to be protected.
The Saturday Nation has since learnt that the failure to protect Kenyans was caused by the breach of contract between the clearing firm, Siginon Group Limited, and the Ministry of Health – the vaccines were held for three years.
The Nation has been running a series of the events that led to the expiry of the vaccines at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Swissport storage has since demanded that the expired drugs be removed to free space.
According to the Ministry of Health, the firm did not honour its part of the deal, which was indicated in the contract, stating that there were contract execution challenges.
The ministry told the Saturday Nation that according to the clearance contract, it required that the agent clears the vaccines from the landing sheds, including payment of all third-party charges, delivers the same to the Ministry of Health’s Central Vaccines Depots and then invoices the ministry for payment.
The payment process, according to a statement from the ministry, is that they receive the invoices, confirms receipt of service in writing then processes the payment through the procurement department.
However, the vaccines were not cleared for entry into the country as per contract by the clearing agent because the shipping agency demanded to be paid before releasing the consignment.
“The clearing agent was not able to honour the contract and subsequently clear the vaccines from the Swissport handling shed, with subsequent loss of shelf life and expiry of the vaccines, before arrival,” says a statement from the Ministry of Health.
The ministry blamed Siginon for variations in and application of demurrage costs constraining contract execution.
Efforts to get Siginon firm to explain why they held the drugs were futile as messages and texts went answered.
Parliament has vowed to summon the responsible officers to answer questions and get to know who was to blame for the mess.
Had the government paid for the shipment immediately, then it would have saved many lives.
However, laxity has led to the expiry of the vaccines that are now waiting to be destroyed.
Even as the Swissport seeks approval from the ministry to destroy the drugs, there is yet another war between Siginon and the Ministry on who is going to foot the destruction cost and whether the company will accept the vaccines to be destroyed before the shipment fee is paid.
The ministry insists that it is not its responsibility to destroy the goods since it was Signod's responsibility to handle and clear the consignment.
For a consignment to be destroyed, the parties responsible have to foot the cost of destruction. Roughly, it costs Sh30 per kilogramme.
