Africa-Press – Botswana. Batswana have been assured that government had strengthened the pharmaceutical supply chain to ensure no more drug shortages occurred.
The assurance was given by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi when addressing Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) meeting in Maun and Shakawe over the weekend.
He said government had reached an agreement with the US’ Baylor College of Medicine to supply Botswana with drugs as a way of diversifying the country’s suppliers’portfolio.
The recent global instability and pandemics had taught government the need to have multiple suppliers instead of depending on one, he said.
President Masisi told the meeting that a number of citizens were currently undergoing training to ensure Botswana manufactured drugs.
He said Botswana Medicine Regulatory Authority had been reinforced and upgraded to prepare it for conducting quality assurance assessments and tests.
“We are going to manufacture drugs here in Botswana to fight cancer, elephantiasis, malaria or TB as we intend to fight all sorts of ignored tropical diseases and I assure you this is not far from happening,” he said.
President Masisi explained that shortage of drugs was caused by supply chain disruptions which emanated from the COVID-19 outbreak.
Many medicines were manufactured in China where the pandemic originated which led to many of its industries, including drug manufacturers, being shut down, he explained.
President Masisi pointed out that some drug manufacturing license holders took advantage of the pandemic and global economic instability to hike prices.
The state of affairs resulted in the depletion of the Ministry of Health’s budget as prices for the likes of high blood pressure and cancer medication became exorbitant leading to shortages.
Turning to the Okavango Diamond Company, he explained that it was wholly owned by government to market Botswana’s rough diamonds to ensure citizens reaped more benefits from the gems.
“We are never going to be doing what we were doing before. We want to get as much money as possible from our diamonds which is why I came up with the Reset Agenda priority of value chain development to leverage as much as possible from the diamond sector,” he said.
In addition, President Masisi said time had come for Batswana to reap rewards of being citizens of a country with rich internationally-recognised tourism resources.
“Most of the best part of our country is given to non-citizens and this is depressing Batswana.
When you look around here in Maun the best places are in the hands of non-citizens and this includes the aviation industry which is mostly occupied by non-citizens here in Maun and I assure you we are working on policies as a government to favour you,” he said.
The President told Shakawe residents more bulls would be donated in the area as part of the presidential initiative.
“We are leveraging on Okavango by bringing roads, infrastructure, hospitals and more and I urge you to help elevate Okavango to a higher level by voting BDP,” he said.
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