Imran Zakir
KARACHI: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has brought imperative development in a fragmentary inquiry over alleged embezzlement in funds of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD).
The NAB has issued call-up notices to five NICVD officers for seeking records of 26 others officers including the head of human resources department and Chief Operating Officer Ms. Azra Maqsood.
As per details this inquiry was commenced when NICVD terminated Dr. Tariq Sheikh, who used to be Medical Officer in the Sindh Health department and also private secretary to a Sindh minister, Dr. Tariq was appointed the NICVD as Staff Officer in 2016. According to NICVD official record due to absence from duties and after fulfilling official formalities, servicing notices, reminders and final show-cause notice, he was terminated from the job in September 2020.
Earlier, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has also written to NICVD management to record their statement regarding misconduct and misusage of powers and irregularities in funds and asked the concerned authorities to reply the six questions.
According to the NAB officials, before this records and professional experience details have been required from the hospital’s Chief Operating officer COO, Ms. Azra Maqsood, whereas, a set of ‘eight questions’ was handed over the accused persons regarding their salaries and recruitment details.
The investigators will continue its inquiry into alleged embezzlement of funds in light of the ‘eight questions’ which aims to get details of academic and professional certificates, as well as salaries. Senior officers of the institute including Haider Awan and Dawar Hussain were also asked to submit its response, while Federal Investigation Agency is also conducting the inquiry against Director Administration Dr. Hameedullah Malik of misuse of Powers and becoming the right hand of Political placed Executive Director Professor Nadeem Qamar.
The anti-graft watchdog officials informed that the officers have been directed to submit the records to a combined investigation team of NAB Karachi till November 16.
NAB was also particularly referring to the records of funds worth Rs 5.15 trillion, which it claimed were provided to the hospital by the provincial health department during the current fiscal year. However, as per the NICVD’s statement, it has received just Rs55 million on account of “No protection is being given to female students by the administration in the college,” the protesting students said and demanded protection for female students studying in the university.
Earlier in March last, it was reported that the ombudsperson had received at least 50 complaints of harassment from the province’s educational institutions. “So far, we have received 70 complaints. Out of that 50 are from academic institutions,” said KP Ombudsperson Rukhshanda Naz.
Female students, Naz had said, had no idea how and where to file complaints. She had added that an awareness campaign was needed to inform female students about the process of filing complaints.
To address the issue that appears to be haunting universities in the province, the ombudsperson had urged universities and departments to form committees to investigate such cases. – TLT
