Namibia is facing challenges in the supply of medicine and clinical supplies for public health facilities.

Therefore, the Ministry of Health and Social Services continues to address these challenges by introducing various measures, such as direct procurement through market scans for suppliers. 

This was shared by Health Minister Dr. Kalumbi Shangula during a health update at the Government Information Centre in Windhoek.

"These include legal challenges to procurement processes for medicines, lengthy procedures legislated under the Public Procurement Act of 2015, a low procurement threshold as per the Procurement Act, poor performance by suppliers, a shortage of active pharmaceutical ingredients for some products, adverse markets of scale, and disruptions to international logistic channels. The Ministry has addressed and continues to address these challenges by introducing various measures."

He says that these include: obtaining exemptions for the Ministry of Finance and Public Enterprises; direct procurements through market scans for suppliers with stock on hand; utilising pooled procurement mechanisms; putting in place multi-year framework agreements; bilateral cooperation with other countries for joint procurement; and utilising the SADC Pooled Procurement Price Database to inform benchmarking of prices to achieve value for money.

"These measures have started to bear fruit, and we will pursue them in a resolute matter. We are confident that in the next few months, the stockout of pharmaceuticals and clinical supplies will be resolved."