RAWALPINDI: The Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) administration has written to a former medical superintendent asking for official recruitment records of the hospital’s filter clinic on Committee Chowk.

The missing records came to the administration’s attention when it began preparing for a presentation for a meeting of the Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU) syndicate to be held next week.

A senior BBH official told Dawn the recruitment records were missing and officials had said it was presented to former medical superintendent Dr Khalid Randhawa.

He said that the current medical superintendent, Dr Tariq Niazi, wrote to Dr Randhawa asking him to return the records as soon as possible.

He added that official letters, merit list details and other documents are missing.

He said the administration gave Mr Randhawa the records so he could present them in court. The records were not returned to the administration after this.

In December 2016, before his retirement then medical superintendent Dr Asif Qadir Mir recruited 225 people in BPS 1 to 15 for the BBH filter clinic, but an inquiry conducted by then deputy commissioner Talat Mehmood Gondal found irregularities and the case was referred to the Anti-Corruption Establishment.

The official said BBH advertised the recruitment of 225 employees in September 2017 and completed the process, but appointments were not made.

He said the matter was presented before the RMU syndicate in May this year, which made it compulsory to consult the Election Commission (ECP), as it had banned new recruitments, and to ask the RMU human resource committee to scrutinise the recruitments.

However, he said, the medical superintendent at the time did not seek the ECP permission and the HR committee did not scrutinise the recruitments.

In the meantime, candidates who had appeared in examinations went to court, which summoned the BBH administration.

The additional medical superintendent did not inform the court of the syndicate’s decision and assured the court the process would be completed within a week.

“This act by the additional medical superintendent angered the then medical superintendent, as he had kept the court in the dark and misled it.

He informed the RMU vice chancellor Dr Mohammad Umer of the matter, who formed a disciplinary committee led by Prof Dr Mohammad Ajmal against [additional medical superintendent] Dr Zafar Iqbal — who gave the court the wrong statement that the process would be completed in a week,” the official said.

The court was to be informed of the ECP’s ban and the committee’s scrutiny of the recruitments in order to maintain transparency, he said, adding that the committee’s work is ongoing.

When contacted, disciplinary committee member and medical superintendent at the Holy Family Hospital Dr Shahzad Ahmed said the matter is pending with the committee, which is recording statements regarding why the BBH additional medical superintendent misled the court on the recruitment issue.

Recruitments will not be finalised without scrutiny by the RMU HR committee, which will prepare its report soon.

BBH medical superintendent Dr Niazi said the RMU syndicate meeting had been called for next week, and the BBH administration has been asked for a detailed presentation on this matter.

The records are missing but BBH officials have said they gave them to Dr Randhawa, he said.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2018