ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is waiting for a green light from the government to launch a probe into an around Rs1 billion scam involving shady award of scholarships to medical students, a source told Dawn.

He said Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) had used Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC)’s funds of over Rs910 million to award scholarships to undergraduate medical students without any criteria, merit and policy indicating gross misappropriation of state funds.

He said favouritism appeared to be the only criterion for the so-called merit-cum-need based scholarships.

A senior FIA official wishing not to be named said: “It clearly indicates that PMC funds were deliberately used for political gain as scholarships were awarded even to private medical college undergraduate students who failed in various subjects.”

He pointed out that private colleges charged a fee up to over Rs1.4 million for a year and confirmed that the FIA was in possession of material revealing gross misappropriation of state funds.

FIA waiting for govt nod to launch investigation into scam, says official

“Now it is up to the government to probe either through the FIA or the National Accountability Bureau as to where these funds were used and who were the beneficiaries,” he added.

The documents indicated that these funds were to be used during a complete MBBS/BDS term of five years and in an unusual move those who failed in the first attempt and made it in the supplementary exams also qualified to continue getting the scholarship.

The former PMC council’s vice president Ali Raza, a close friend of Imran Khan, was the architect of the scholarship scheme. Mr Raza was running the previous council in almost all matters from finance to administration.

The documents showed that over 335 students had benefited from the shady scholarship and loan scheme which was rolled into action without following codal formalities, and specially ignoring merit and transparency.

The official added that the PTI had engaged the youth on various social media platforms by giving them under the carpet financial support and this was one mechanism found in PMC to run and get support from youth on social media by awarding scholarships to medical students.

There were no merit criteria laid down to continue scholarships or loans. The loans given to students will be recovered seven years after graduation that too in five yearly installments.

In yet another deviation from the standard rules, no guarantee documents had been received for return of the loan.

According to documents available with Dawn,the PMC was to establish a trust to be headed by President Dr Arif Alvi but it could not be matured to date and funds were released discretely.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2022