THIS is apropos the news item ‘Supreme Court seeks timeframe for making provincial drug testing lab fully functional’ (Sept 2).

This deficiency came to the notice of the chief justice of Pakistan on his visit to the health institutions in Lahore.

The reason given by the health department officials for this delay was lack of equipment and staff. It is strange that the Drugs Act 1976, which came into force ‘at once’ on May 1976 to regulate the import, export, manufacture, storage, distribution, quality and sale of drugs, also provided for the establishment of provincial drug testing laboratories (section 15) besides federal drug laboratory and research laboratories (section 14).

But the federal and provincial governments have failed to establish fully operational laboratories even after three decades.

After the devolution of the federal health ministry, an act to establish a Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP Act 2012) was enacted in November 2012 to provide effective coordination and bring harmony in the inter-provincial trade and commerce of therapeutic goods (drugs).

After this Act, the federal drug control administration, its offices and laboratories, became part of the authority. All assets, rights and movable and immovable properties, cash, and bank balances along with employees of the said offices under the federal government were transferred to the authority under section 15 of the Act. It is not understood what the DRAP has done to address this issue.

I hope that the new government with strong political will and the objective to improve the health sector will ensure the implementation of drug laws in letter and in spirit.

The outgoing Federal Wafaqi Mohtasib was assigned the job of addressing this issue in 2016. A high level committee was constituted by the Ombudsman for addressing systemic failures that are the real causes of maladministration and formulating standards of good governance as envisaged by the law.

This committee, including representatives of pharmaceutical trade and industry, chief executive officers of DRAP, the health ministry, and policymakers prepared a detailed analytical report of the drugs situation.

This report was presented to the president of Pakistan on May 29, 2017, and was approved by him. A copy of the report was also sent to the chief justice by the undersigned as a committee member, but it fate is still not known.

Dr Inamul Haq

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2018