Pharmacists Council of Nigeria:After Ahmed Mora, An Era Of Remedies By Ahmad Salkida     Posted Mon Jan 2,2012

 
Prof Chukwu:Health Minister

Frayed nerves and agitated minds among the tribe of practicing pharmacists in Nigeria are beginning to experience calm following last week’s sack of erstwhile registrar of Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, Ahmed Tijani Mora. Months before this development, the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, a professional association of practicing pharmacists had practically severed relations with the Council, freezing remittances of members’ check off dues to the Council. On its part the Federal Ministry of Health, conscious of the damage done to the Council’s regulations and statute books by Mora had sought some remedial steps.

In a subtle acknowledgment of the anomalies perpetrated by the erstwhile registrar, the Ministry had in the course of an intervention meeting directed that “the PCN should withdraw from circulation the current Pharmacy Act until all the identified errors, and anomalies are corrected”. In place of Mora, the hugely exuberant pharmacist who ran the Council with enormous personal gusto, a rather self restraining bureaucrat with the department of Food and Drugs in the Ministry, Mrs. Gloria Abumere, was drafted to the Council in acting capacity pending the constitution of a new board. 

The real acid test for the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu is ensuring that the process of reconstituting a new board for the Council meets all statutory requirements without undermining any expectations of transparent conduct. Both the Council and the Ministry had brewed trouble in 2009 when in the course of constituting a board for the Council, some below- the-counter deals and breaches were made more evident. Months ago, in an official memo on the matter to the Presidency, Chukwu had acknowledged that “it is indeed obvious that there is a breach of provisions of the Act and the solution is to simply dissolve and reconstitute the membership of the Council in line with the Act. Such an action is right and will portray this government as being true to its doctrine of rule of law and will score an important political point for the government”. 

Having started by dissolving the compromised board and going ahead to relieve Mora of his post, the Minister has lived up to the tone and rhetoric of his memo to the President. The next natural line of action to bring remedies would be to reconstitute a new board with the mandate to address all the anomalies besetting the Council. Clearly calling for further redress are the issues arising from the report of an audit firm that examined the books of the Council. The audit firm, invited to examine the books of the Council under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Health following repeated accusations from the body of practicing pharmacists, reported that Mora threw caution to the winds and dealt recklessly with the finances of the Council.

In the words of the audit firm, the Council under Mora’s watch is unable to account for over N102 million and additional over $143,000 in foreign currency receipts belonging to practicing pharmacists. The firm offers some cursory insight, declaring fully that “we observed that proper records were not kept. We requested for the breakdown and analysis of payments received from this category of members, but none was made available to us”. It further highlighted that “under the provisions of the PCN Act the Council is required by law to remit 70 percent fees to PSN, however, from the analysis above, it could be seen that there is clear breach of the Act and Fiscal responsibility Act 2007”.

It is believed that the audit report gave rise to the position of pharmacists to withhold members’ check up dues from the Council. Noting that the subsisting accounting system in the Council was defective and unlikely to promote “accountability,” the audit report identified such faulty processes as including lumping figures without giving a breakdown of their receipts in terms of names and particulars of individuals who paid what; making it extremely difficult to undertake reconciliation as well as unavailability of basic accounting records. To ensure that such faulty processes become a thing of the past it is important that that professionals with impeccable records are constituted into a new board that should set guidelines and standards for the Council’s financial dealings.

Sector analysts trace the basis of the sleight of hands that Mora dealt his colleagues to his successful exclusion of representatives of the body as statutorily required from the board of the Council as inaugurated in 2009. Arising from this, the registrar allegedly took steps to rework the Council’s statute books with a view to boosting his powers and authority in all matters including disciplinary matters where he made himself the only factor. He personally arrogated to himself the sovereign authority to perpetuate himself in office by smuggling a clause [14.3 on retirement age] into an existing law to read: “every officer of the Council, including directors [with the exception of the registrar], shall retire upon attaining the age of 60 years or 35 years of service; whichever comes first”.

In effect, the most enduring heritage to live for the Council is for the Minister to ensure that in reconstituting the board, the conditions that made it possible for Mora to run riots at the Council does not reoccur. Such steps would include the earlier reprimand by the Ministry, “the PCN should withdraw from circulation the current Pharmacy Act until all the identified errors, and anomalies are corrected”. The officials of the Ministry equally took a position to denounce the former registrar’s pen chance for undermining the provisions of the statute books, in the same vein directing him to ensure that “membership of the PCN investigation panel and disciplinary committee must conform to the provisions of the gazetted PCN Act”.

Salkida is freelance journalist