STO resumes supplying medicine o IGMH

State Trading Organization (STO) has resumed supplying medicine to the government’s main hospital, Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH).

STO halted supplying medicine to IGMH earlier today for defaulting on credit payments.

MD of STO Shahid Ali told Sun Online today that IGMH presently owes about MVR 200 million to STO.

“This is a recurring problem. Dr Habeeb would call us and IGMH and STO would manage to find a solution every time. We have resumed supply this time also,” said Shahid Ali.

Person in-charge of IGMH Dr Mohamed Habeeb said earlier the government’s main retail and wholesale company STO stopped supplying medicine to the hospital’s pharmacy after stating that the hospital’s credit limit had been reached.

“STO today stopped supplying medicine and medical material after saying that the credit limit is up. What can we do? Finance Ministry makes the payments,” Dr Habeeb said.

Finance Ministry was not available for a comment at the time of press.

A senior official of the government told Sun Online that STO is a government company and that the transactions between the government and STO are not always strictly business transactions. He said, for example, the medicines supplied by STO to IGMH are stored at warehouses that belong to IGMH.

A public limited company with 92 percent of shares owned by the government, STO has recently been stating that the company is facing enormous difficulties due to the government defaulting on payments.

At the beginning of this month, STO declared they had just 10 days reserve of oil due to difficulties acquiring new shipments over delays in receiving MVR 620 million owed by the government.