02/12/2025
MEDICINE MONOPOLY, GREED, PRICE-FIXING CAUSING PAIN AND DEATH TO POOR PEOPLE..Unconscionable That FTC Acknowledges Prima Facie Grounds For Investigation Yet Fails To Act
By KEN ALI
I REMEMBER when, a few years ago, a virtual monopoly was permitted in the pharmaceutical importation business.
I wrote extensively on the looming negative impact on small people, including the elderly, infirm and single parents.
It was obvious that the conglomerate controlling the billion-dollar trade could call the tune on prices and availability.
Price-fixing was inevitable.
And the well-connected business elites, motivated by pure greed, did just that. Their circumstances were bolstered by their strategically-located pharmacies, which enjoyed preferential prices and full stock.
As predicted, small drug stores were squeezed, and some were forced out of business.
This is another vivid example of the rich getting richer, the poor becoming poorer, and medium and small businesses facing pressure to stay afloat.
The medicine monopoly took place during the Rowley administration and under the watch of woeful Trade Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon.
It was facilitated by the Fair Trading Commission (FTC), a supposedly independent agency, which did not see a breach of the competition policy.
Neither the Rowley Government nor the Commission did anything to protect consumers.
The media generally remained aloof of the issue, and its columnists kept focus on safe and obscure matters.
The Pharmacy Board repeatedly warned that common people were suffering as a result of a single importer and distributor dominating the market.
As recently as last January, then-government minister Dr. Amery Browne uttered hocus-pocus in dismissing a complaint on the monopolist by Senator Wade Mark.
The disclosures at a parliamentary committee on Monday were long overdue.
The market dominance by a select few has led to inflated drug prices and widespread shortages.
Other companies have been blocked from importing and selling medications, all of which adversely affect patients, especially those on limited incomes.
Chairman of Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee Jagdeo Singh was damn right to scold the commission’s representatives.
All top FTC officials should be fired, perhaps even prosecuted for their failures.
Commission members who permitted the monopoly should also be debarred from holding further public office.
FTC Executive Director Bevon Narinesingh said the Commission has never before initiated an investigation of monopolistic practices.
Why? Was Narinesingh afraid to ruffle the feathers of the sickening monopolistic "one percent" drug importer?
PAAC Chairman Singh noted that the FTC acknowledged the existence of prima facie grounds for investigations, in referencing correspondence between a PPRBA attorney and the FTC.
He lamented, yet still the FTC demanded "an extensive shopping list" of documents before it could begin a probe.
That is unacceptable. Narinesingh should resign from his cushy high-paying job out of shame for effectively failing suffering poor people and protecting the "one percent" medicine monopolists.
The medicine price-fixing scandal must be recorded as yet another manner in which the previous administration strengthened business elites at the expense and exacerbated pain of struggling small people.
Private Pharmacy Retail Business Association (PPRBA) Glenwayne Suchit is advocating that an open market can significantly reduce prices and estimated a savings of $178 million if generic imports were liberalised and properly regulated.
Such move will undoubtly redound to easing the economic and physical pain for ordinary people.
It will allow them to live longer, healthier, happier and more productive lives.
Ain't that a fundamental right everyone is entitled to and for which the population has collectively voted to correct?!
