MULTAN: The meeting of the committee looking into the controversial budget for the distance education programme of the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) recommended to the syndicate to move the budget to the university senate for approval when the fiscal year is almost over, 11 months of it have passed to be exact.

The committee meeting that could not be held on May 22 as the vice- chancellor did not attend it was held on May 23 at his house.

According to sources, the meeting of May 22 was postponed as there were chances that it would, once again, reject the budget and it was later held at VC’s house as the university administration reportedly wanted the committee’s recommendations for approval of the budget and the VC’s house was the most suitable place to achieve the objective.

The budget presented in the syndicate meeting was different from that which was later recommended by the committee. The budget presented before the syndicate was of Rs560 million while the amount shrunk to Rs340m in the committee’s meeting.

The committee was constituted in September 2013 after the syndicate had refused to approve the Rs560 million budget of distance learning programme while syndicate had approved the rest of the budget of the university.

The committee consisted of Dr Shaukat Malik, Dr Muhammad Farooq, Farkhanda Mumtaz, distance education programme director Dr Ishaq Fani and a representative of provincial additional secretary finance while the VC had chaired the committee meeting.

Its first meeting was held in November when it referred back the case to syndicate, seeking some clarifications.

The BZU administration called the second meeting of the committee after nine months when the fiscal year was near its end.

The sources said all offices of the university were making efforts for approval of the budget as the VC, registrar, treasurer and other employees of the offices were getting remunerations of millions despite the fact that all the three offices remain shut on Saturdays and Sundays when the classes of the distance learning programme are held. The university administration had already spent the maximum budget without approval; however the meeting was informed that only Rs144.7m were spent.

The committee meeting was called without issuing any agenda for it; however, later the agenda was issued when some committee members wrote to the vice-chancellor in this regard and the agenda was released a day before the meeting.

Dr Shaukat Malik, one of the committee members, told Dawn that the recommendations for approval of the budget were conditional as the committee had also issued directions for removal of overlapping in accounts and that unapproved programmes should not be offered. He said the committee had also recommended getting approval of the number of seats in each programme from the bodies concerned. Besides, even a single penny could not be spent without the approval of the budget.

The committee, in its November meeting, had referred back the case to the syndicate to clarify whether it (syndicate) had issued directions to revise the entire budget of the programme or only of the Schedule for New Expenditure (SNE), as the distance learning program director had insisted that the committee could only revise SNE and not entire budget.

Dr Malik had then raised objection to one-point agenda of the meeting that was to review the SNE instead of the entire budget, saying that the syndicate had constituted the committee to discuss and revise the entire budget of the programme and not only of the SNE.

Dr Malik alleged the minutes of the syndicate meeting, held on September 5-6, 2013, were tampered with so the committee would revise the entire budget of the distance education programme, not only the SNE, as the budget was unconstitutional and unjustified.

He had said there were many irregularities in the budget as the university had approved only six out of 75 subjects, adding that the VC had approved the remaining subjects while exercising his power under Section 16(3) of the BZU Act 1975.

He said the VC was bound to get approval of his step taken under Section 16(3) from the respective bodies within 45 days; however, approval of the remaining subjects was not got from the university’s board of studies, academic council, syndicate and senate. He said it was still not clear whether it was the distance education programme or weekend programme as the classes were being held only on weekends.

Besides, 165 employees of distance education programme, 95 additional employees in different cadres from BPS-1 to 19 were being hired without any justification or involving the competent authority, Dr Malik alleged, adding there were fictitious and overlapping accounts in the budget, staff from BPS-1 to 17 had been hired against rules while no competent authority had given approval to the number of seats for admissions. He said there was no check on the finances and the budget of distance education programme was one-fourth of the total budget of the BZU.

The committee, however, referred back the issue to the syndicate that discussed in its next meeting and clarified that it was constituted to revise the entire budget.

It is pertinent to mention here that 20 deans, chairmen and heads of departments had written a letter to the VC, requesting him to hand over the distance education programme to the respective departments, saying they would run the programme with existing resources and without demanding extra resources.

Treasurer Sohaib Rashid Khan said there was no difference in the budget presented in syndicate and recommended by the committee. He said spending the budget before its approval was not allowed.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2014