By Ragan M Conteh

The Member of Parliament who is representing Kono district, Hon Tamba Simeon Johnny has accused the Managing Director of National Medical Supplies Agency (NMSA), Dr. Lawrence Sandi for political dismissals of MPs in some districts.

NMSA is a public service agency, responsible for the procurement, warehousing, distribution of drugs and medical supplies in a transparent and cost-effective manner for and on behalf of all public institutions throughout Sierra Leone.

Hon. Johnny said it was because his NMSA had not been supplying and distributing drugs and medical supplies on time in those districts.

He added that the people had been requesting their MPs for supply of medical drugs, adding that they have been complaining of drug shortage.

He said the worst of it was that all the people in those districts do not know about the agency, they only know the MPs in their districts.

Hon. Johnny made this statement on Wednesday 20, March 2024 during a committee sitting at Committee Room 1 in the House of Parliament.

The chairperson of Health Committee,  Hon. Wuyatta Songa from Kenema district said her committee summoned the aforesaid agency because they had received complaints from hospitals and others agencies.

Hon. Songa further said that they noticed what is happening in the various hospitals and it is causing a lot of problems in the country’s health sector in spite of government doing its best to improve the sector.

During the engagement, she said a lot of concerns were raised pointing blames onto the National Medical Supplies Agency, notably on how they had not been distributing medications resulting to dramatic shortages in the hospitals.

She said most of their activities are fraught with deep issues because the people and other agencies have not been co-operating with them.

She said the committee have summoned the agency to have a fruitful discussion with its members to identify possible challenges that NMSA is confronted with.

The committee admitted receiving documents submitted by NMSA given to the clerk but the MPs said they had tried to peruse the documents but they were not readable.

The chairperson ordered the Managing Director of National Medical Supplies Agency (NMSA), Dr. Lawrence Sandi to go back and re-do the documents and submit them on Friday 23 March 2024 to the committee’s clerk for MPs to look at them again.

“The documents should be submitted to committee electronically. Without the documents, we will not be able to carry out our investigations,” she said.