THIS is with reference to the article ‘Exempt from accountability?’ (April 17) which made several accusations about the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) and has wrongly linked it with the removal of Dr. Tariq Banuri from the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

To set the record straight, the late Prof. Salimuzzaman Siddiqui and Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman, two of the most famous scientists of Pakistan, were involved in the development of this international centre as successive directors from 1966 to 2002. Prof. Rahman retired as ICCBS director some two decades ago and has not been involved with the centre in any administrative or financial capacity since then. The centre has been built and sustained with international grants from Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and other countries as well as donations from the Husein Ebrahim Jamal Foundation and the Dr. Panjwani Memorial Trust.

The centre was selected after highly competitive selection processes, as a Centre of Excellence acknowledged by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). It has the most decorated faculty in the country that has won about 30 civil awards and honorary doctorate degrees.

It is the only centre in the developing world that provides training to scientists from advanced countries, having trained over 1,200 foreign scientists from some 35 countries, including about a hundred scientists from Germany, as well as those from France, and the US.

The outstanding performance of ICCBS has been periodically evaluated by top scientists of the world, including several nobel laureates. Also, a neutral external performance evaluation of the centre by 11 top-rated scientists from the West was commissioned by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2019. Comments by individual scientists and the performance report generated by the 11-person evaluation body are available on relevant websites.

An attempt was made by HEC under its former leadership to destroy the ICCBS and other centres of the University of Karachi by introducing a bizarre and unprecedented funding formula for the future. The HEC was stopped from doing so by the Ministry of Education which pointed out that it was against all international norms.

The world class scientific instrumentation, libraries and bioassay facilities at the ICCBS are supporting the entire chemical and biochemical science research in Pakistan. The current annual funding of the centre is about one per cent of similar centres in the West, and 10pc of research institutes in India, Turkey and Malaysia. Needless to say, all its accounts are regularly audited and it is completely accountable for all the funding it receives.

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Choudhary
ICCBS Director
Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2021