behind the reverse drug smuggling.
▪️ How Driver prevented the waste of foreign exchange subsidies.
Former Director General of Drugs and Controlled Substances at the Food and Drug Administration, in an interview with Tasnim News:
🔹If cash drug subsidies went directly to the pharmacies, there would be a high risk that they would be used to purchase property and for unrelated purposes, which would leave distributors, manufacturers and importers without funding.
🔹Contrary to popular belief, Driver was not a cashless program; The government converted 2-3 billion dollars of the 4,200 toman currency every year into the nima currency, creating the necessary funds for the rial. In the first two years no insurance claims were paid.
🔹Thanks to this support mechanism, not only did the out-of-pocket expenses for citizens not increase, but in some cases (especially for special medicines), the costs actually decreased. Although the Planning and Budget Organization was not entirely on board with the idea, the situation was so critical that the plan was implemented to prevent drug shortages.
🔹Just 6-7 months later, the foreign exchange rate was again set at 28,500 tomans - a wrong decision that nullified all the efforts of the experts, and sent us straight to the starting point!
tasnimnews.ir/3744000.