Politics

KRG to establish board to oversee import of medicine, food: lawmaker

“Quality control and the price of medical supplies should not be in the hands of the private sector, but rather a well-regulated public sector.”

Mustafa Shilani 2019/07/23 20:03

kurdistan Kurdistan Import Medicine Quality Control

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is set to establish a national commission to supervise the import of food and medicine, a Kurdish lawmaker confirmed on Tuesday.

Zana Mala-Khalid, head of the Food and Medicine Committee in the Kurdistan Parliament, said the new KRG cabinet plans to form a board which would oversee the import of medicine into the autonomous Kurdish region as well as ensure quality and fair prices.

One of the new Kurdistan Region cabinet’s plan is to ensure the security of the population’s health and well-being, Mala-Khalid told local media, adding the decision to regulate medicine imports would “prevent random companies from bringing medicine into the Kurdistan Region.”

“In a series of meetings last week, we visited medicine storages across the Kurdistan Region and closely observed the import mechanisms private companies use along with inspection standards currently in place in all three governorates,” the lawmaker explained.

Mala-Khalid said that although a free market is an effective economic method, it is not efficient for medicine.

“Quality control and the price of medical supplies should not be in the hands of the private sector, but rather a well-regulated public sector,” he said.

In recent months, citizens in the Kurdistan Region have expressed their concerns over the lack of quality control and inflated price of medicine. Most medicine is brought in by several private companies with no formal and legal framework for the private sectors to operate.

“We are providing our complete support to establish a national system to regulate the imports and assure the quality of medicine and food” in the Kurdistan Region, Mala-Khalid affirmed.

In October 2018, the KRG enforced new regulations on the region’s pharmaceutical industry after sales of counterfeit drugs and claims of shady deals between doctors and sales companies.

In November 2018, the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Health encouraged citizens not to buy medicines from places other than registered pharmacies, noting that the packages must have the Ministry’s seal on them.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany