KARACHI, Jan 8: The Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly has refused to settle Rs76.880 million accounts of the district government Hyderabad for the year 2010-11 pertaining to the purchase of medicines without obtaining a drug testing laboratory report.

However, its 11 of the 12 paras involving Rs317m were settled as were verified by the auditors.The PAC, which met in the Sindh Assembly building committee presided over by its chairman Jam Tamachi Unnar, took serious notice of the lapse on the part of the officials concerned and deferred the para.

After the meeting, attended besides the officials concerned by Ghulam Mujaddid Isran, Dr Rafique Bhanbhan, Syed Bachal Shah, Mr Tamachi briefed the media. He said the practice of purchasing and supplying untested medicines and without ensuring quality and batch numbers would continue until some laws were framed making it obligatory for all hospitals and the health department to constitute a board of governors or supervisory committee comprising people of good character from the localities for the purchase of medicines and other material.

He said despite recommendations by the PAC while going through such paras, so far the government had failed to take an initiative in that regard. He said if a huge amount was put at the disposal of government functionary in such an emergency situation as floods and other calamities, the practice of ignoring the standard procedure of testing drugs before purchasing and ensuring their quality and manufacturing date would continue to be repeated.

Referring to paras of the district government Jamshoro from the audit report for 2011-2012, Mr Tamachi said of the 17 paras involving Rs158m, the PAC settled only seven paras of Rs15m while 10 paras were deferred for want of documents.

The practice of purchasing medicines without having batch numbers was also detected in the audit report of the district government Jamshoro involving Rs1.782m in which the Kotri taluka hospital allowed payment of Rs1.782m during 2010 on account of purchase of medicines without batch numbers, and the dates of manufacture and expiry were also not mentioned.

The deputy commissioner informed the PAC that the purchases were made on a loan basis in an acute emergency and the batch numbers and manufacture/ expiry dates were not mentioned on the bills due to urgency. The PAC observed that people did not trust medicines supplied in government hospitals to patients, and remarked that which drugs stores could supply such a large quantity on credit and wait for payment for two years.

The PAC also took notice of the excessive expenditure over the budgetary allocation of Rs17.497m. Although the department furnished copies of the revised budget allocation under the signature of the district coordination officer, it failed to furnish reasons and the date of revision/ re-appropriation for verification.

In reply to a question, Jam Tamachi said until the education system in the province improved, there would be no awareness of health hazards among the people. He said even well-to-do families did not care to get their offspring vaccinated for measles and other diseases.