PESHAWAR: Irregularities have been detected in procurement of medicines by health department for government hospitals, according to findings of a committee tasked to technically evaluate the process.

Dr Shaukat Ali, the director-general of health services (DGHS), who is also head of Medicine Coordination Cell (MCC) to purchase drugs worth Rs5 billion for hospitals, denied the allegations and said that he had asked Technical and Evaluation Committee (TEC) to review the process but it had bypassed its mandate.

TEC has raised 22 observations over the procurement process, according to documents.

In 2015, health department introduced a central system for procurement of medicines through MCC. The committee is responsible for timely purchase, selection of medicines, medical devices, non-drug items and surgical disposables. It has been directed to begin the process of procurement in January and complete it by June.

DG health claims objections by technical committee have been rectified

MCC at Directorate General, Drug Control and Pharmacy Services is lawfully authorised for procurement through a notified committee with professors of surgery, medicines and cardiology and paediatricians, anaesthesiologists, gynaecologists, medical superintendents of hospitals, district health officer, pharmacists, drug inspectors and analysts, director finance and administrative heads of health directorates with defined term of reference (ToRs) under Rule 32 and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (KPPRA) Rules, 2014.

The procurement of medicines for the year 2023-24 was in progress and tenders were to be opened on May 5, but a day ago the department held the process in abeyance and a new committee was notified under DGHS replacing the director general of Drugs Control and Pharmacy Services, other experts and technical members as defined in the notified policy and non-technical members were made part of it, according to sources.

Following opening of tender last week, 83 firms out of 138 applicants were selected by Selection and Rate Contracting Committee (S&RCC) formed by DGHS.

DGHS called joint meeting of the procurement committee and TEC to recheck the process within 48 hours. TEC in its meeting raised observations after rechecking seven successful bidders and said that the process was entirely defective.

It said that the process would lead to procurement of poor quality medicines that would affect patients in addition to causing monetary losses to government.

The TEC’s report said that the new criteria adopted by the procurement committee allowed bidders to sell medicines at maximum retail price (MRP) as opposed to the old criteria under which they were required to offer rates equal to or less than trade price.

Earlier, TEC was fully involved in the procurement process to assist S&RCC for technical work but now it has been bypassed under the new set of rules. The drug testing laboratory (DTL), which previously examined items, has no role now. “It will lead to purchase of substandard stuff,” said the report.

In the past, technical and experienced persons with pharmaceutical background were part of the process for physical inspection of pharmaceutical units and importers. They have now been replaced with non-technical members of the committee including clerical staff.

Dr Shaukat Ali, however, denied the observations of TEC.

“I called a joint meeting of both S&RCC and TEC to bring transparency and fairness in the process of procurement and wanted to approve technical bid evaluation reports in the meeting which was supposed to recheck and review all the technical bids reports by TEC committee to avoid any discrepancies if found in the process of procurement of MCC,” he said.

He said that TEC raised 22 observations on different scores granted against different criteria of the seven chosen technical bids in the light of which they notified a team of experts to review and recheck those bids. The team submitted its report according to which TEC violated its notified ToRs and tried to utilise the mandate of S&RCC, he added.

Dr Shaukat said that out of 22, 16 observations were incorrect and the rest were rectified. For the past four months, the hospitals have been short of medicines owing to cancellation of the bidding process and re-starting the procedure.

However, he said that they were working on fast track to ensure that the drugs were procured the soonest and supplied to health facilities across the province.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2023