PMC explanation sought on private certificate printing

Islamabad : The national health services ministry has formally asked the Pakistan Medical Commission to explain position for inviting private companies to bid for the registration certificate printing contract by disregarding its directions.

“It is requested that clarification into the matter [tendering for printing contracts] along with justification as per rules may be forwarded at the earliest,” director (regulation) at the national health services ministry Dr Baseer Khan told the PMC secretary in a letter, whose copy is available with 'The News'.

The development comes as the finance ministry's National Security Printing Company writes to the NHS ministry that inviting bids from commercial and private companies for the printing of PMC registration certificates was absolutely illegal and in contravention to the standing directives of the government.

It sought the immediate cancellation of the tender notice and issuance of an order for it to print the PMC registration certificates.

The NSPC claimed that it formally informed the relevant PMC boss about the irregularity but the latter insisted that the regulator had taken the relevant authorities on board on the matter and that it, being an autonomous organisation, could get the registration certificates printed by commercial or private companies after tendering.

It said the PMC’s disregard for law and rules in that respect seemed to be meant for sabotaging all government efforts made to block the circulation of fake registration documents.

The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, which was abolished to form the PMC through legislation, used to get these certificates printed by the public sector Pakistan Printing Press with high-security and machine-readable features to prevent forgery and counterfeiting by fake doctors.

Those certificates also had anti-scan and anti-copy line patterns, ultraviolet and enlarged electrotype watermarks and were printed on a special paper used for banknotes with optical variable ink.

When contacted, a senior PMC official insisted that the regulator acted on all matters in strict compliance with the law and rules, and would justify tendering for the private certificate printing to the satisfaction of the ministry.