SIALKOT: District coordinator (Health) Sheikh Asif Mehmood and the provincial drugs inspector raided privately owned ‘Ashfaq Medical Store/Hospital’ in Kingra Tehsil Pasrur on Tuesday and confiscated a large quantity of used and unused government medicines.
According to statement issued by the investigation team, Muhammad Ashfaq Sulehri could not provide any plausible justification for the stock of government medicines being stored at his private medical store. A case has been registered by the Sialkot district administration with the Sabz Pir police station in the Pasrur tehsil.
The case identifies Muhammad Ashfaq Sulehri as the main accused in illegally acquiring and storing government medicines in his private facilities.
Given that the matter involves the embezzlement of the public exchequer and involvement of government officials, strict action was requested to be taken by the Health Department. The Health Department was also asked that a special audit team be deployed in Sialkot to investigate the embezzlement. Sialkot district coordination officer Mujahid Sher Dil also requested that an anti corruption force be established to register cases against renegade officers within the Health Department. “Such a large shipment of medical supplies could not have been tampered with without inside help. The Health Department has leaks and they need to be sniffed out and dealt with,” Dil said.
Simultaneously, an inquiry committee has been constituted comprising of senior district government officers to inquire into the source of the confiscated government medicines.
During the proceedings of the inquiry committee, Sialkot district health officer, failed to provide relevant records regarding the purchase and distribution of government medicines. Following this, the store of the district officer (Health) at BHU, Chauni Sulehrian and old building offices were sealed on the orders of the DCO. The provincial health department has requested that the district officer (Health) and deputy district officer (Health) be brought on charges of tampering with records and embezzlement of large amounts of government medicines.
An FIR has been lodged with Sailkot’s Anti Corruption Establishment, against the district officer (Health), deputy district officer (Health), store officer and other officials of the district health department. At present the district officer (Health) is on a preventive bail while the deputy district officer (Health) and other officials of the department have been arrested by the authorities. On the basis of a tip-off, the district inquiry committee along with the deputy director and Anti Corruption Establishment officials recently raided the Ganjianwali Khurd village and recovered stolen records belonging to the DO (Health) from two health officials including store keeper Abdul Hamid and Paramedical school store keeper Muzaffar Iqbal.
They were found guilty of tampering with official records of the issue of medicines on the orders of District Officer (Health). On another tip-off, the district inquiry committee and deputy director, Anti Corruption Establishment raided different places in the district including a privately rented house being used as a warehouse in Uggoki and recovered a huge quantity of medicines from the private premises owned by dispenser and health technician of the Health Department. The total worth of the recovered medicines is estimated at Rs7million.
The stores of DO (Health) Sialkot were handed over by district inquiry committee to the Anti Corruption Establishment and the available stock has been counted.
The proceedings of District Inquiry Committee as well as the Anti Corruption Establishment are currently underway and are expected to be finalised shortly.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 29th, 2010.
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