Islamabad (Online): NAB Rawalpindi has arrested on Tuesday eight accuse persons in mega corruption drug case namely Dr. Muhammad Ali the then Secretary cum Member Drugs Pricing Committee), Ex member pricing (BPS-21) DRAP, Ahsan Feroze, Director of M/s Maple Pharmaceuticals (Pvt) Ltd, Arif Aziz Akhai, proprietor M/s Akhai Agencies, Amir Saddique, Director of Excel Health Care Laboratories (Pvt) Ltd, Saif-ur-Rehman & Khalil-ur-Rehman, Directors of M/s Galaxy Pharma (Pvt) Ltd, Rizwan Umer & Muqtadir M. A. Javaid, Directors of M/s Martin Dow Ltd.
The wrongful financial benefits derived by the eight pharmaceutical companies, firms on the basis of price increase through above said meetings comes to be Rs. 1078.08 Mappox till 30-6-2015 (out of which one Pharma company M/s RG Pharmaceutica (Pvt) Ltdreturned an amount of Rs. 385.12 million after deducting retailer and distributor margin.
This illegal benefit is perpetually being gained by the pharmaceutical companies, firms who submitted inflated invoices incorrect incomplete costing data and were selling of their drugs on prices which were illegally increased by the members of DPC.
As per details, NAB received a complaint wherein it was alleged that officers / officials of Ministry of National Health Regulations Services Division (NR&HSD) and others were involved in illegal increase in prices of drugs through Drugs Pricing Committee meetings.
The prices of the drugs were fixed as per section 12 of Drugs Act 1976 by Drugs Pricing Committee (DPC) duly constituted by Federal Govt.
During the process of Investigation, it revealed that the Pharmaceutical companies in connivance with accused Officers/ Officials submitted incomplete/incorrect and inflated invoices to DRAP for fixation of drugs prices at exorbitant rates.
Due to illegal price hike in the DPC meetings held on 09-10-2012 & 22-01-2013 and sub-committee meeting held on19-11-2012 approx Rs. 1078.08 million has been pocketed by these Pharmaceutical companies causing unbearable burden on general public.
In this case, two accused persons namely Tariq Haider and Mian Muhammad Khalid
were arrested but released by the Accountability Court after payment of their liability of Rs. 380 million.
The Director General NAB Rawalpindi Attiq-ur-Rehman has said that NAB under the leadership of Mr. Qamar Zaman Chaudary, Chairman NAB is committed to eradicate corruption by adopting Zero Tolerance Policy across the board.
