Contrary to the country's requirement of 100 kgs per year, the Ministry of Health had allocated 31,534 kgs ephedrine to various pharmaceutical companies during 2010-11 in violation of the UN Conventions, official sources revealed. "The ANF investigators probing ephedrine quota allotment case have obtained a document from Ministry of Health which revealed that the total requirement of ephedrine in Pakistan is 100 kgs per year," said an official of Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) privy to the investigation.
He said the document obtained by the ANF investigators was prepared by two former drug controllers, Rauf and Sayyad Hussain of the Ministry of Health, who on several occasions opposed the allotment of huge quota of ephedrine. They said that ephedrine is used in manufacture of medicine (illicit use) or synthesis of methamphetamine (illicit use). It is a controlled substance/precursor under the "1988 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances," of which Pakistan is a signatory.
In 2010-11, as per the evidence, the pharmaceutical companies, namely M/s Berlex Lab International, Multan and M/s DANAS Pharma (Pvt) Ltd, Islamabad, as per their plan, got allocated 6500 kgs and 2500 kgs of Ephedrine for export purposes to Iraq and Afghanistan respectively, they said.
However, they could not provide pre-import certificates from the said countries as their export plan was based on falsehood. Once their export plan did not materialise, they managed to get above allotment converted into local use with the connivance of Ministry of Health high ups.
They said that Minister of Health made huge allocation of ephedrine in clear violation of the "UN Convention" as the export quota for Iraq was 3,000 kgs and for Afghanistan 50 kgs only. In the year 2010, total allocation of ephedrine raised to 31534 kgs against the Annual ceiling fixed/authorised by International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) for Pakistan ie 22,000 kgs only (fourth highest in the world), they said.
Sources said drug controllers informed the Ministry of Health high-ups several times that the allocated quota of ephedrine to different companies was much more than our domestic requirements and clear violation of the rules. However, the high-ups of the ministry allocated huge quota of ephedrine to different pharmaceutical companies and they converted it into local consumption.
After the ephedrine allotment scam surfaced, the Ministry of Narcotics Control on September 19, 2011 directed ANF to proceed against the culprits of ephedrine allotment under the CNS Act and ANF Act, 1997. The ANF registered an FIR No 40/2011, PS ANF, Rawalpindi on 10-10-2011. The Investigating Team has recorded the statements of around 100 witnesses and also examined and took into custody the relevant record of the case.