KARACHI: Despite an increase of almost 50 per cent in its budgetary deficit, Karachi University (KU) is working with four finance directors, a deputy finance director and an additional registrar and is due to appoint 25 teachers — who have hurriedly been cleared by the university selection board in violation of rules in just two days — on Monday when the university syndicate is scheduled to hold a meeting.

The same day the Sindh High Court is also likely to take up a petition filed by a candidate for a post in the pharmaceutics department against alleged misappropriations committed by the university selection board.

These were some of the important points highlighted at a press conference held on Sunday on the campus by a group of KU teachers to share their concerns with journalists over the university’s financial crisis.

United under what they described as the Teachers’ Alliance for Good Governance, the organisers included two syndicate members and an executive member of the Karachi University Teachers’ Society (Kuts).

The programme started with an introduction of all teachers in attendance by Prof Mohammad Ahmed Qadri, former chairman of the university’s political science department and also a syndicate member, after which executive member of the teachers’ society Dr Shakeel Farooqi read out a statement on behalf of his colleagues.

“The seriousness of the present financial crisis could be gauged from the fact that the university administration had to acquire a loan of Rs60 million from the pension funds of teachers and non-teaching staff through internal borrowing. That amount was later used to pay salaries, allowances and over-time dues,” Dr Farooqi said.

The university, he pointed out, had failed to pay its dues amounting to Rs120 million and the administration recently expressed the fear that it might not have funds to pay salaries and utility bills in coming weeks.

This situation, he said, had appeared in July but no meeting of the finance committee and the university senate had been called to date.

Citing clauses of the university act, he said the university administration was bound to take permission from the senate after acquiring consent of the syndicate in case of funds’ transfer from one head of expenditure to another.

“But, ironically, no session of the senate has been called even after more than a year, though there should be two sessions of the senate in a year under the university act,” he said, adding that reports of the director of finance and the government auditor should be placed before the syndicate but this hadn’t been done for years.

Teacher at the computer science department Asim Ali said that KU teachers who had died over the past three years hadn’t received any financial support from the university while those being retired were also deprived of pension.

“Kuts might have pursued Dr Waheed-ur-Rehman’s case, who was murdered this year, but the fact is his family is struggling to survive as it hasn’t received any money from the government,” he said.

Too many appointments

The teachers claimed that the deepening financial crisis couldn’t stop the administration from making ‘unnecessary’ appointments, which, they said, were a huge burden on the university’s meagre resources. Not only that, the university had a long list of retired people currently occupying key posts, they added.

The university, they said, had violated rules in the selection of 25 candidates whose number was very high against the limited budgeted posts.

For instance, it was pointed out that the three candidates recommended by the selection board for the post of assistant professor in the applied physics department didn’t have the basic degree in the subject, a mandatory requirement under the law.

“Eleven teachers of the department have submitted an application against the selection board decision to the administration on this matter. At two other departments, 12 and eight teachers have been recruited, though there was no need for that,” said Dr Farooqi, adding that unnecessary appointments were also being made on a contract basis with people being hired on a Rs50,000 monthly salary.

Some documents shared with journalists showed that the recent selection board held at the department of pharmaceutics, faculty of pharmacy, had serious discrepancies; eight candidates have been chosen against three seats.

Out of these, three didn’t appear in the National Testing Service (NTS) test, which was a mandatory condition for applying for the post mentioned in the job advertisement.

“All eight candidates short listed by the selection board are students of a same professor in the department of pharmaceutics, which may not be just by coincidence,” the constitutional petition filed by a candidate in the Sindh High court says.

Another candidate for the same selection board has written letters to the vice chancellor and the chancellor of the university with similar allegations.

“Among the selection board’s chosen candidates is also a teacher against whom a forgery complaint was filed by another KU teacher,” said Osama Shafiq, a teacher at the mass communication department.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2015

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