On June 26, 2013, the state-owned Essential Drugs Company (EDCL) acquired a drug production machine. Let alone use it, the state-owned company did not even unbox it for the next seven years.

And when it did, the machine's productivity went down dramatically, rendering it almost useless, showed an audit of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh that was submitted to the parliament on Sunday.

Thanks to this negligence, the government had to count a loss of Tk 3.82 crore to the government in fiscal 2019-20.

"This was a serious financial irregularity," said the CAG.

When quizzed by the CAG auditors, the EDCL authorities claimed the machine's trial run was ongoing and the output was 95 percent and not 19 percent or 39 percent as reported. This was not accepted by the CAG auditors as no supporting documentation was provided.

The CAG auditors also wrote to the secretary of the health services division for punitive actions on September 19, 2021. As of February 2, no response was received from the ministry.

Subsequently, the report called for finding out the persons responsible and depositing the disputed amount in the state coffers.

The audit found six other counts of financial irregularities that yielded a loss of about Tk 32 crore in fiscal 2019-20 alone.

One of the irregularities involves the failure to manufacture the antibiotic Meropenem that is used to treat lung infection during the pandemic -- when the demand was high.

The EDCL management thrice cancelled the tender for procuring the raw materials without any good reason and advised the public hospitals that were demanding the antibiotic to procure it from the local pharmaceuticals instead.

Had the company, which was founded in 1962 produced the drugs by importing the raw materials through the second tender, it would have made a profit of Tk 4.47 crore, the report said.

When asked about the carelessness, the EDCL authorities said the tender processes were cancelled as the procurement committee found the quoted prices of the raw materials to be much higher than those prevailing in the international market then. In so doing, the company saved about Tk 1.53 crore.

The CAG, however, said the explanation is valid for the cancellation of the first tender and not the successive tenders.

Subsequently, the report called for taking action against those responsible for the production loss of an important medicine during a public health crisis in the country.

Besides, EDCL also caused a loss of about Tk 18.38 crore by keeping another purchased equipment uninstalled and unused at its Gopalganj pharmaceutical factory plant-3 for two and a half years.

When quizzed, the company pinned the delay on the pandemic. The audit team dismissed the excuse as "illogical".

The audit also found that the company incurred a loss of Tk 1.58 crore for extending a special allowance meant for employees who were directly involved in treating Covid-19 patients to those who were ineligible.

The CAG audit team called for refunding the allowance to the company fund.