HCMC – BMS Medical Company, whose two executives have been arrested for the alleged manipulation of medical equipment supply bids at Bach Mai Hospital, has been found to win many huge tenders at hospitals throughout the country, according to Tuoi Tre news website.
Since early this year, the firm has won nearly 20 material and equipment supply packages in various provinces and cities, with values ranging from billions to hundreds of billions of dong. Notably, some had the winning bids just slightly different or even equal to the values of the packages.
Pham Duc Tuan, chairman and director of BMS, and Ngo Thi Thu Huyen, BMS deputy director, have been arrested and prosecuted for inflating prices of medical supplies.
Aside from Bach Mai Hospital, BMS has cooperated with many hospitals in medical equipment supplies. On August 21, it won a procurement bidding worth nearly VND1 billion at Yen Bai Province’s General Hospital.
A day earlier, BMS won a surgery material provision bidding offered by Army Central Hospital 108 with a value of VND1.9 billion. On August 19, it was successful at a bidding at Dong Anh General Hospital, winning a VND3.23 billion contract, or VND10 million lower than the package value.
On April 23 alone, BMS won three packages for Covid-19 fighting equipment launched by Haiphong City’s Department of Health. The packages were between over VND3 billion to VND8 billion each.
Notably, its winning bid almost reached 100%. Since November 2015, it has taken part in 58 medical supply biddings, won 57 of them and is now waiting for result of one bidding.
For packages in Haiphong City, BMS was awarded no-bid contracts. The winning prices, surprisingly, were all equal to the reserve prices of the bidding packages.
In Nghe An Province, a consortium comprising BMS and three other companies won a package worth VND45.04 billion, compared to its value of VND45.125 billion.
Last year, BMS and Tuan Ngoc Minh Investment JSC won a bidding worth VND252.87 billion, slightly lower than its value of VND252.98 billion.
