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Thursday March 28, 2024

Pharmacy watchdog without top decision-making body for months

By Jamila Achakzai
March 08, 2020

Islamabad : Failure to install the new decision-making body of the Pharmacy Council of Pakistan even five months after the expiry of the tenure of the last one has exposed the national health services ministry’s ad hoc approach to the affairs of the regulator for the practice and education of pharmacy in the country.

The three-year term of the last council had expired on September 22 last year.

Some fear the re-appointment of members ‘backed by the powerful vested interests’.

They insist that a summary for the nomination of the council’s new members has got stuck at the office of the ministry’s current head honcho and unelected special assistant to the premier, Dr Zafar Mirza.

Insiders claim that the vested interests want to see their blue-eyed men from the previous council in the new one but the newly-enforced stricter criteria for the council nominations have emerged as a hurdle and thus, delaying the council formation.

The sources say administrative things at the pharmacy watchdog, especially on college registration, inspection and examination, had virtually come to a halt due to a long delay in the formation of its decision-making body.

They also complain about the ministry’s failure to fill the key administrative post of the council secretary for around five years.

According to them, the last council approved the PCP service by-laws in 2016 and was quick to send it to the national health services ministry for securing the mandatory approval of the law ministry and establishment and finance divisions. However, the matter has got stuck in the bureaucratic red tape since.

Early last year, the council recommended the names of three officers to the cabinet to choose one of them for the additional charge of the secretary’s office. There’s been no follow-up of it on part of the ministry.

Though National Institute of Health senior scientific officer Ikramul Haq is on top of the list of the three nominees, Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan deputy director Dr Ghazanfar Ali Khan understood to be favoured by the ministry’s current top bosses is likely to land the prized job.

A Taxila-based pharmacist has threatened to take the ministry to the court over a long delay in the council’s formation.

“If the [new Council formation] process [is] delayed for one more week, I will file a writ petition in the High Court of the area jurisdiction,” Dr Zahid Mehmood formally wrote to the national health services secretary lately.

He told ‘The News’ that the ministry had begun the formation of the new council in October last but that ‘exercise is getting nowhere’.

“Vested interests are striving to get their blue-eyed boys from the last council adjusted in the next one though the Federal Investigation Agency, anti-corruption department and National Accountability Bureau are probing them for the alleged corruption and misuse of authority. Also, an inquiry is under way against that mafia at the ministry on my complaint of serious administrative and financial irregularities,” he said.

Dr Zahid said if the crooked made it to the new council instead of the experts with PhDs in pharmacy, he would ‘go to any extent to expose them and their patrons’.

When contacted, the relevant ministry officials claimed that the council’s formation was in the works and would hopefully be completed in the near future.