Filenews 5 April 2024
From 2004 to 2019, the Ministry of Health paid an amount of €2,770,042.43 as rents to the private owner of the premises where the pharmaceutical warehouses are housed. From 2004 to 2016, the Ministry of Health paid rents amounting to €1.7 million, while the private owner had paid to the Ministry of Commerce for the rental of the industrial plot on which the premises are built, only €80,000.
The case of the Health Ministry's medicine warehouse, which was flooded on Clean Monday resulting in the destruction of 105,941 packages of medicines, is now moving to another level. The discussion on the possible unsuitability of the premises brought to light what had happened from 2004 until today, while the public revelations of the Audit Office caused particular concern since, among other things, there is a possibility of waste of public money due to the rental by the Ministry of Health of this building.
A possible attribution of responsibilities, as it is ascertained, should probably reach twenty years, since from 2004 until today 14 ministers, 7 general directors and a number of directors and deputy directors of Pharmaceutical Services have passed through the Ministry of Health.
It is recalled that the warehouses are built on an industrial plot that the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry had granted for a low rent to a private person in 1979 in order to operate an aluminium factory there. This company, however, subsequently suspended its operations and since 2004 the premises, which in the meantime had been built within the industrial plot, were subleased by the private individual to the Pharmaceutical Services. Since 2017, the tenant of the premises is the Directorate of Purchases and Supplies of the Ministry of Health.
The first discussions to rent the site began in February 2003 and the first rent price studied was £1.75 per square metre and increases of 7% every two years after the first three years. Before the signing of the contract, the amount amounted to £2 and as shown by the relevant report of the Audit Office in 2019, even before the Pharmaceutical Services started using the space, the monthly rent increased even more, since it was initially added instalments to repay the cost of landscaping works that the owner had proceeded with totalling £88,000, With the increases not stopping here as additional work followed at an additional cost of £95,000.
As the Audit Office points out, "with increases of 7% every two years, the annual rent in 2013 reached €150,703. In 2013 the parties signed an agreement to reduce the rent to €135,000 per year.
The Audit Office notes the fact that the Ministry of Commerce, on 26/4/2012 and "despite the fact that the company no longer engaged in industrial activity but subleased its premises to the state since 2004, proceeded to the renewal of the lease agreement of the industrial plot to the private individual for another period of 33 years from 1/5/2012 to 30/4/2045".
The contract between the individual and the Pharmaceutical Services was renewed in 2016. In 2017, the warehouses passed into the hands of another Department of the Ministry of Health, namely the Directorate of Purchasing and Procurement, and since then the contract remains in force.
It is reported that in 2018 the Ministry of Health requested approval to extend the lease of existing storage premises, instead of finding new ones, with the main argument being the possible implementation of the GHS which, as it was reported, "would result in the redefinition of storage space needs".
"Our Service, as we noted, considers it scandalous that the state grants land for rent with the aim of developing the industry and the tenant subleases it, especially in a government department, receiving rent 2,125% higher than what he pays without even serving the original purpose of operation of industrial areas," the Audit Office said in its 2019 report. adding that "the case of the company, which subleased to the Pharmaceutical Services since 2004 the industrial plot granted to it by the Ministry of Commerce, is a typical example of speculative exploitation of industrial areas".
Notes on the unsuitability of the premises from 2019
A total of 105,941 packages of medicines were affected by the rain and hail that flooded the health ministry's medicine warehouses on March 18.
As reported by representatives of the Ministry of Health to the Health Committee of the Parliament, in total the stocks of 149 medicines were affected by the rain, of which 2 were stored on behalf of the Ministry of Health, 63 on behalf of the HIO and 78 on behalf of the SHSO. The cost for these stocks amounts to €879,908, of which €54,000 concern the Ministry of Health, €450,000 the HIO and €373,000 the SHSO.
During yesterday's meeting of the Parliament's Health Committee, the Director of Pharmaceutical Services, Elena Panagiotopoulou, after clarifying that the contract for the rental of the warehouses no longer belongs to her own Department, but since 2017 has passed to the Directorate of Purchases and Supplies of the Ministry of Health, read a note prepared in 2019, when an inspection had been carried out at the specific premises.
Elena Panagiotopoulou said, inter alia, that during the inspection it was found that the roof of the premises had cracks and problems "which were such that would allow rainwater to enter the warehouse" and added that this note also refers to a lack of temperature measurement system, clutter, unprotected areas, entrances from which there was uncontrolled access, etc. Since 2019, Panagiotopoulou said, no other audit was carried out since there was no invitation from the competent Authority (Directorate of Procurement and Procurement). However, as he added, "if we went later and they had not complied with our instructions, we would have to call the police and close the warehouses, which was not possible, especially in the midst of the pandemic and so many needs that existed." The Director of Pharmaceutical Services, at the same time, indicated that during the pandemic "not a few health ministers passed through the warehouses and held conferences to present the vaccines"
In his own statement, the director of the Purchasing and Procurement Directorate, Christos Nicolaou, stressed that "it is one thing whether the premises were unsuitable and another thing the natural disaster" and described how the hail that fell on Green Monday closed the gutters resulting in the problem.
It was also reported at the meeting that rainwater had been poured into storage twice more in the recent past, but the medicines were not affected
