09 January 2004	Friday	16 Ziqa'ad 1424

KARACHI, Jan 8: Not content with just one inquiry, the Sindh chief secretary has directed the Chief Minister's Inspection, Enquiries and Implementation Team to look into the incident in which some offices of the health department were gutted recently. Some 4,000 files were destroyed in the fire.

An inquiry has already been held into the incident and its findings made public. According to some sources, the CM's Inspection Team has already started "interrogating" some section officers working for the health department. The monitoring team is expected to submit a report to the chief secretary within the next few days.

The files destroyed belonged to the department's budget, women medical officers, commission-I officers and specialist doctors sections. The annual confidential reports of the staff were among the files which were lost.

However, some files on which disciplinary actions were pending remained safe. These files had been stored away in a separate cabinet. In another development, the health department officials have asked the doctors and other staff not to visit the affected offices before Feb 4. The order has been issued so that the health department could concentrate on obtaining from other departments the copies of the files lost.

Meanwhile, the doctors and other staff who know that their files were stored in the health department offices that have been affected by the fire are worried as they fear that their annual confidential reports may have been destroyed.