The advisors of our esteemed Prime Minister from Multan are fully bent upon creating yet another U-turn for the Government. This time it is the Ministry of Health (deemed as one of the most corrupt Ministries by Transparency International). It appears that on the insistence of the CJ for the Ministry to publish a 'Transparent formula for setting the consumer prices of medicines in Pakistan; they have come up with a novel idea (presumably on the advice of the bureaucrats) on how to open yet another door for making money and getting rich at the cost of poor patients in Pakistan. As opposed to the Global norm of gradually reducing the one on one interaction between bureaucracy and the industry thereby reducing the possibility of undue influence. It appears that the Ministry is hell bent on inviting representatives of the Industry to Islamabad individually for consultations with the representatives of the Ministry to fix prices of over 70,000 pharmaceutical products registered in Pakistan. The Ministry, it seems is out to prove that they can re-invent the wheel and hence does not need to look at best practices adopted by neighbouring countries in Asia with more similarities in terms. They are either suffering from not invented here syndrome or are completely blind to the fact that our socio economic indicators are similar to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. All they had to do was to compare the prevailing prices in Pakistan with the average prices being charged for similar products in neighbouring countries but no they have to reinvent the wheel, how else would they prove that they are Nobel Laureate material and not armed with fake degrees. - MAHMOOD HUSSAIN, Lahore, June 4.