ISLAMABAD: After objections raised by the auditor general of Pakistan (AGP), the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has summoned half a dozen officers of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) over charges of irregularities and corruption by not fixing prices of 11,204 medicines.

The officers who have been summoned include all heads of the health and over the counter drugs, additional director quality assurance and the head of Central Drug Laboratory (CDL).

According to documents available with Dawn, FIA has summoned Director Health and Over the Counter Drugs Dr Fakhruddin Amir and his predecessors Dr Abdul Rasheed, Dr Abdul Samad and Noor Mohammad Shah.

They have been informed in writing that FIA was conducting an inquiry into charges of “loot of billions of rupees by Drap by not fixing prices of 11,204 medicines as per audit para of the AGP”.

Probe underway after AGP report finds corruption worth billions of rupees, failure in fixing prices of 11,204 drugs

The officers have been asked to appear before the investigation officer, Mirza Khizar Hussain, on January 13, and bring complete record of enlisted medicines and its prices, sampling by the federal drug inspectors, samples tested by the federal government analyst at the CDL Karachi and all the reports.

They have also been told to explain under what authority they had awarded enlistment certificates without fixing prices in violation of Drap Act 2012 and Drugs Act 1976.

An official of the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS), requesting not to be quoted, said that in 2014 a statutory regulatory order (SRO) was issued under which Drap started enlisting medicines rather than fixing its prices.

Because of the steps, prices of the medicines increased by manifolds. In some cases, if a registered drug was available for Rs100, its enlisted rate went up to Rs2,000 due to which companies stopped selling registered medicines, he said.

According to another document, the FIA has also summoned Assistant Director (Law) Hafiz Bilal Bin Akbar and asked him under which law/authority he had given a statement in a writ petition in Islamabad High Court (IHC) that GS1 Pakistanfirm will not collect any data from pharmaceutical companies and will not charge any amount on providing their services to pharmaceutical companies.

“Whether GS1 Pakistan is abiding by your statement in letter and spirit. While giving the statement in the high court you must have been instructed by high-ups of Drap; provide the complete file of authorization along with complete record of the process adopted to award contract of providing software support to pharmaceutical companies to print barcode on packing of medicines to GS1 Pakistan,” said the letter.

The ministry official said Drap had informed the IHC during hearing of the petition by Chief Justice Athar Minallah that free of cost service of barcode will be provided to companies and public but it could not be implemented.

The AGP’s audit report, available with Dawn, showed a number of anomalies in prices such as medicines of same formula being sold at different rates.

It revealed that Drap had started enlistment of medicines without fixation of prices due to which the medicines were sold at exorbitant rates under the health and over the counter (HOTC) products. Though a number of products fell in the category of drugs, they were sold as vitamins and nutrition due to which their prices were not fixed.

“Non-fixation of maximum retail prices (MRPs) of vitamins and other ingredients with monographs led to the exorbitant price hike of HOTC products.”

According to the report, HOTC manufacturers were labelling their products with MRP though their prices were not approved/notified by the government. Undue incentive to the manufacturers was granted through non-regulated pricing to invest in non-essential medicine rather than encouraging production of essential medical products.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2022