PESHAWAR: Health department has warned of disciplinary action medical superintendents of 24 hospitals for violation of financial rules in purchase of medicines.

Director-General Health Services Dr Shaheen Afridi has issued directives to medical superintendents of 13 secondary care and 11 primary care hospitals to explain their position regarding procurements immediately.

Sources said that Rs1.355 billion was spent in violation of financial discipline by the superintendents of those hospitals for purchase of drugs.

The notification titled ‘violation of financial discipline in the utilisation of medicine budget for the financial year 2025-26’ was issued after complaints were received that the hospitals failed to comply with the relevant criteria that could affect patients.

DG health warns heads of 24 hospitals of disciplinary action

“It has been observed with grave concern, through a correlative analysis of your institution’s expenditure against the data from Chief Minister’s Medicines Operations Portal (CMMOP) that the disbursement of medicine budget for the current year has been conducted in a manner that fundamentally contravenes prescribed financial protocols,” it said, addressing the superintendents of relevant hospitals.

The notification said that specifically expenditures were recorded that substantially exceeded the value of authorised purchase orders and confirmed deliveries received. “Furthermore, payments have been processed without the requisite clearance of drug testing laboratory (DTL) in clear violation of established financial discipline,” it added.

It said that those actions persisted despite explicit and reiterated directives, which strictly forbade the utilisation of current budget allocations for the settlement of prior year’s liabilities mandate that a minimum of 80 per cent of released funds should be exclusively reserved for medicine procurement through CMMOP framework and failure to display the prescribed criteria for any permissible local procurement.

They have been instructed to provide a comprehensive justification for the irregular expenditures.

Officials told Dawn that health department developed CMMOP software under which all hospitals were required to upload details about purchase of drugs and expenditures on regular basis.

“However, none of the hospitals have fulfilled the criteria and purchase drugs at higher prices at local level. Commonly, the department purchases drugs from manufacturers and vendors at 50 per cent lower rate from the market. It means that drugs worth Rs20,000 can be purchased at Rs10,000 from manufacturers,” they added.

Similarly, hospitals are required to send the sample of drugs to drug testing laboratory to test their quality before purchase. Not only this but the hospitals should utilise only 10 per cent budget for local purchase (LP) of drugs, which are not available in store and required by patients on emergency basis. In this case, most of the budget has been utilised for LP.

Additionally, hospitals claimed to have paid liabilities to vendors for last year in strict violation of the directives health of secretary.

Officials said that Health Secretary Shahidullah Khan had strictly ordered medical superintendents of hospitals in a meeting few months ago that the liabilities of previous financial year could not be paid from the budget of current year.

He had asked them to send details so that finance department could be reached to clear the outstanding amount, they added.

They said that the main issue was the nexus among medical superintendents, district health officers and untrained storekeepers, who were collaborating with drug suppliers for decades. “Hospitals require pharmacists to replace storekeepers and streamline drug-related matters,” they said.

Some of the hospitals have utilised the entire budget and have nothing left to purchase drugs for the rest of the year.

“The issue is not shortage of money but governance. Most of the responsible officials will evade action as has been happening in the past,” said official sources.

Health Secretary Shahidullah Khan said that action would be taken depending on the replies of medical superintendents of hospitals.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2026