Widening probe: ANF identifies 7 more firms in ephedrine racket

Agency suspects MNA Abbasi’s company was forging documents.

ISLAMABAD:

Further investigations into the ephedrine quota case have helped the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) indentify seven more pharmaceutical companies that allegedly obtained the illegal quota, besides the two companies initially charged.

The seven companies include PML-N MNA Hanif Abbasi’s Gray Pharmaceuticals. ANF officials told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Narcotics Control on Wednesday that Abbasi’s company provided documents showing that the obtained quantity of ephedrine did not match the production of the drug.

The officials told the committee that ANF suspected Gray Pharmaceuticals was forging documents and was part of the scam. They said 106 companies were allotted the quota for ephedrine.

Chairman Standing Committee on Narcotics Control MNA Murtaza Javed Abbasi formed a sub-committee to evaluate the progress in the ephedrine quota case. “The sub-committee will ascertain the current situation of the provision of the quota to the companies and any irregularities in it, besides monitoring the progress of the investigations,” Abbasi said.

ANF officials told the committee that Standard Operating Procedures for any future allotment of the ephedrine quota were tightened. The officials added that  pharmaceutical companies would now be required to give a three-year record of their production and sale.

The committee also discussed the draft of the Control of Narcotic Substances (Amendment) Bill, 2012, moved by MNA Nosheen Saeed. Abbasi asked the Ministry of Narcotics Control’s (MoNC) legal expert and the Ministry of Law to discuss the draft bill with MNA Saeed and come up with a workable draft.



The ministry objected to the provision of proposed punishments in certain clauses, declaring them as contradictory to other laws.

30 tonnes of drugs concealed

Meanwhile, ANF officials told the standing committee that they had information on the presence of almost 30 tonnes of drugs concealed all over the country, but they could not seize it.

“We do not have resources. The government has not released us the funds [worth] Rs250 million that we need to use for paying the informers and carrying out other related exercises,” an ANF official stated.

Threat of HIV

Providing data on the number of drug users in Pakistan, an official of the MoNC told the standing committee that Pakistan has 625,000 drugs users. Among them, 125,000 were injected drug users (IDUs), according to a 2006 assessment on drug use.

“It was noted that 80% of IDUs in Sindh and 70% in Punjab were sharing needles and were at risk of being HIV positive,” the MoNC official claimed. He told the committee that the prevalence of HIV among IDUs was 27%.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2012.