Amir Kiani breaks silence, denies involvement in drug price hike

Former national health services minister says PML-N govt, dollar exchange rate behind hike in medicine prices

Amir Kiani, former national health services minister who has been removed from the federal cabinet by Prime Minister Imran Khan, has said he was not to be blamed for the hike in prices of medicines.

Kiani, while speaking to a private news channel on Saturday, said that he respected Prime Minister Imran's decision to remove him from his post, Express News reported.

Hitting out at the opposition, Kiani said that it is sad that certain quarters have labeled his removal to be owing to incompetence.

"The increase in medicine prices were first done under the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz [PML-N] government and partially now because of our exchange rate against the US dollar," he added.

According to the former federal minister, the decision to increase prices of 345 medicines by 2.4 per cent was made during the  PML-N reign.



"After this the price of a Rs100 medicine increased to almost Rs240," he said, adding that, the current government has only marginally increased the prices of medicines.

"Due to the rise in dollar exchange rate, we were compelled to increase prices of some medicines between two to nine per cent," he said.

The former federal minister challenged the PML-N to prove him wrong in this regard. He said he has complete trust in the country's premier.

Earlier on April 20, Premier Imran had ordered the ministries concerned to provide maximum relief to the people during the holy month of Ramazan, according to Special Assistant to the PM on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan.

“We are also making sure that the next budget provides relief to the public,” she told reporters after a meeting of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders chaired by the prime minister at Bani Gala.

“The prime minister has directed ministers to keep a check on power outages and price hike before the advent of Ramazan.”