September 14, 2005	Wednesday	Sha'aban 9, 1426

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LAHORE, Sept 13: The Punjab government has finally launched an inquiry against the Punjab Medical Faculty secretary, registrar, officials as well as examiners, who were held guilty of corruption in a paramedics examination during a preliminary inquiry.

The health department conducted the inquiry after detecting the scandal in April this year.

Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi has given a go-ahead to conduct the inquiry against the PMF officials and examiners under the Punjab Removal from Service Ordinance, 2000, following a summary moved by health secretary Rashida Malik.

The Punjab government has constituted a four-member inquiry committee, comprising Board of Revenue member Javed Malik, Communicable Disease Control Director Dr Muhammad Hasan, Adviser Health (Technical) Dr Anwaar Ahmad Bugvi and PMF secretary Dr Tanvir Ahmad. Dr Ahmad will act as a department representative to facilitate the committee.

The inquiry committee will quiz PMF’s former secretary Dr Syed Muhammad Firdous, registrar Dr Syed Muhammad Zubair, admn officer Muhammad Mohsin Durrani, head clerk Saifullah Warraich, assistant clerk Inamullah, junior clerks — Zaheer Iqbal and Muhammad Boota — stenographer Imran Ijaz, certification officer Nasir Maqbool and senior computer operator Nauman Rafique.

It will also interrogate eight out of nine examiners, who have been found guilty of preparing wrong results. Examiner Prof Hadyatullah has been blacklisted and debarred from becoming examiner in future. He will not be tried under the PRSO 2000 as he had already been retired as a professor of pharmacology from the Allama Iqbal Medical College.

The other eight examiners are: Dr Javed Ahmad Goraya, Capt Dr Mukhtar Ali, Dr Tauseef Javed, Dr Muhammad Husain Cheema, Prof M. Azam Zia, Dr Abdul Aziz, Dr Mahmood Salahuddin and Dr Khizer Mahmood Kazi.

The health department had unearthed corruption in the paramedics examinations for 2004 after re-evaluating the scripts before declaration of results on the complaints of some students as well as MPAs. As the department got all scripts re-evaluated from independent examiners, it found that the results were shocking as most of the failed candidates were declared pass and those securing good marks were declared fail. The initial assessment, which was not approved, had showed that 3,546 candidates appeared in the dispensers’ examination and of them 1,130 were declared successful at a percentage of 32. However, the re-evaluation changed the results as only 668 candidates remained pass, including those who were declared fail for allegedly not greasing the palms of the examiners or others involved. The pass percentage was reduced to 18.8.

Similarly, the initial assessment of the sanitary inspectors’ examination showed that 325 candidates appeared out of whom 74 were declared successful at a percentage of 22.77. The pass percentage came down to 8.9 as only 29 candidates qualified in the re-evaluation.

As for the nine examiners, they had assessed 1,841 papers and declared 1,170 candidates passed at a percentage of 63.55. It is learnt that these were the papers in which the examiners found after re-evaluation a difference of 15 or more marks. The re-evaluation changed the results as 766 candidates remained pass, including those who were earlier declared fail for not bribing the examiners. The pass percentage was, thus, reduced to 41.72.

Punjab Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed had told reporters that the complaints of students and MPAs revealed that each of the 3,000 candidates was asked to give Rs30,000 to the examiners.

The initial inquiry conducted into the scandal by Dr Anwaar Ahmad Bugvi, Prof Dr Yasmin Lodhi and Dr Muhammad Athar had documented that the PMF paramedics examination for 2004 were conducted in gross violation of rules.

It said the role and responsibility as well as work and conduct of both secretary and registrar of the PMF were dubious and unlawful. Most of the staff members, particularly all officials of the PMF examination branch, were directly or indirectly involved in the scam.

“There still remains many unanswered questions and, therefore, a thorough investigation is required to unveil the real situation and fix responsibility in the scandal.”

The inquiry committee had recommended that both PMF secretary and registrar should immediately be suspended from service so that the staff could come forward uninfluenced for a fair inquiry.

It may, however, be mentioned that the health department had posted secretary Dr Firdous principal medical officer at the Rawalpindi General Hospital and secretary Dr Zubair was sent on one-year leave.

The inquiry team also stated that the nine examiners, who marked the scripts, had behaved against all norms of paper-marking and were responsible for gross violation of misconduct and corruption. All the nine examiners of dispenser and sanitary inspector examination should be proceeded against under the rules.

The committee also made an observation that Dr Muhammad Azam Zia, professor of pharmacology at the PGMI, Lahore, had denied having marked the papers but received money from the PMF. “It is still a mystery that who was Prof Zia marking papers in the central marking hall of the PMF for about a week,” the committee wondered.

It also said Prof Hadyatullah, a retired teacher, had committed a serious offence but keeping in view his past conduct it was recommended that he should surrender the money to the PMF and be declared banned for the future.

Besides facing inquiry under rules, the committee stressed that all those responsible for the act, including the secrecy officer, should return the money drawn from the PMF.

Feeling that the provincial medical faculty immediately needed to be revamped, the committee recommended that a body of experts should be constituted to propose amendments to rules, regulations and operating procedures so as to make the examination system foolproof and credible.

It is learnt that another five-member committee is probing the ministerial staff’s role in the examination scandal, highlighting the deficiencies in the existing system and proposing modifications for a foolproof examination and registration system.

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