Birmex, the state-owned company in charge of purchasing medicines, will have to account for more than one billion pesos, according to the third installment of the 2023 Public Account report.
Among the irregularities pointed out by the Superior Audit Office of the Federation (ASF) are: the purchase of medicines that did not pass Cofepris tests, the purchase of medicines that Insabi did not need, payments of million-dollar invoices to two companies without being able to prove the contracted services and the sending to the ISSSTE of expired parts of medicines, healing material and supplies.
According to the forensic compliance audit 2023-2-12NEF-23-0234-2024, Laboratorios de Biológicos y Reactivos de México S.A. de C.V. (Birmex) paid 819 million pesos to the company Almacenaje y Distribución Avior S.A. de C.V., without having documentary evidence that proves the provision of the service. The same story with the supplier Farmacéuticos Maypo S.A. de C.V., to whom it paid more than 152 million pesos.
The ASF also detected at least three irregularities in purchases from the company Neuronic Mexicana, since the application of penalties for days of delay in the delivery of medicines was not proven; Birmex paid the company 24 million pesos for three medicines that were not required by Insabi and “of which various rejections by health institutions were identified”; and it bought 10 batches of medicines for 15 million pesos that did not comply with tests carried out by the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris).
According to the audit, in the midst of the crisis due to the shortage of medicines in public health institutions, Birmex supplied ISSSTE medical units with 8,060 expired pieces of medicines, healing materials and supplies.
Among other allegations, which resulted in 11 administrative sanctions, was the lack of coordination and supervision in inventory control.
The ASF did not find documentary evidence to prove “the departures, returns or existence in the Birmex Finished Product Warehouse of medicines and vaccines; the destruction or return to the supplier, or in its case, the existence in the warehouse of finished product”, in addition to the fact that the parastatal did not record in the “Stock Inventory” format the batches of vaccines and medicines acquired.
Source: latinus.us
