Pharmaceutical sector: 20th Amendment bill to be introduced to solve problems: Dr Farooq

MQM parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar on Friday hinted at introducing the 20th Constitutional Amendment to solve pharmaceutical sector's problems besides ensuring greater financial devolution to provinces.
Responding to scores of questions from pharmaceutical sector at a seminar organised by Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association (PPMA) at a local hotel, he as a chief guest said, MQM was fully committed to resolve all issues of the sector through legislations. However, he pointed at alternative options to overcome the problems emerged for the pharmaceutical sector after the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
He said the issues could also be referred to the Council of Common Interest or bringing in a resolution in Article 144 of the Constitution and pass it with a simple majority to enact the 18th Amendment. He however, pointed out the 20th Constitutional Amendment would need a two-third votes in the National Assembly to become the law.
Farooq said the Constitution of Pakistan guaranteed everyone's fundamental rights and dual taxation of any sector in the country would never take place after the Amendment for provincial autonomy became the law. He invited the participants to understand the importance of the Amendment in Constitution, which all political parties had voted to ensure provincial autonomy, however, he said, there was still a room for greater financial devolution to provinces particularly transfer of sales tax to federating units.
The MQM federal legislator also asked the members of pharmaceutical sector the transfer of healthcare sector to provinces may have provided opportunity to them to capitalise on increase in competition amongst all four federating units. He said his party was making efforts to also bring in amendments to hand the sales tax collection and financial autonomy rights to provinces and seeking support from other political parties.
Farooq said "over-centralisation" and feudalism collectively had derailed the nation's future course of development, which his party would like to overpower for the greater interest of Pakistan. He said criticising the 18th Amendment by political parties was unfair act because all of them had passed it to become the law. He assured all the participants of function that MQM had its door open on all and vowed to solve public and manufactures problems.
MQM's federal legislator and chairman of National Assembly standing committee on healthcare Dr Nadeem Ehsan said his party would leave no stone unturned to settle the pharmaceutical sector's issues. He said whatever confusion after the 18th Amendment had hit the sector would be solved at the earliest so that the manufacturers could be given a sigh of relief to continue their investment in the country. He said he would also hold meeting with Raza Rabbani on the transfer of healthcare sector to provinces and issues consequently emerged from the Amendment. He said door for review was always open to solve the problems.
BNA (Awami) Senator and chairman standing committee of Senate on healthcare, Kulsoom Parveen termed the passing of 18th Amendment a great act to restore the Constitution to 1973 status. She said her party was always advocating for a greater provincial autonomy and wanting a complete right on resources. She stressed the need of setting up drug regulatory authority (DRA) as a centralised body of the nation to watch the drugs making and their quality and standards.
She said all countries had their central body for checking the manufacturing, sales, pricing, import, export and standards of medicines whereas in Pakistan the trend had went reversed with the Amendment. As result of the historic legislation, she said, some 43,000 people had lost their jobs from healthcare sector. However, Kulsoom said the provincial autonomy should not be at the expense of national unity. MQM Senator Abdul Haseeb Khan criticised the pharmaceutical sector for raising their concerns after the 18th Amendment took away their privilege or created new problems.
He said the government had sought pharmaceutical sector's feedback and proposals for the Amendment but the sector ignored the calls, which ultimately resulted in the problems. He however, assured the members of pharmaceutical sector that their problems would be solved besides their demand for DRA would also be met. He supported the views that there should be a single medicine regulator authority in the country, instead of many.Chairman PPMA, M Haroon Qasim, Dr Waheed and Aisha Khokhar raised questions regarding the future of pharmaceutical sector affiliation with which provincial authority would be coupled after the 18th Amendment. They demanded of the government to reinstate the federal government's jurisdiction on healthcare sector and set up a central body to check and register medicines besides regularising import, export, sales, manufacturing and prices of medicines.