KARACHI: Three doctors from Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University (SMBBMU), Larkana, who were sent to China, Germany and the United Kingdom in 2016 on a federal government scholarship worth $129,600 for four-year PhDs, have not returned home after completing their degrees.
The revelation came at a meeting of the Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), chaired by Nisar Khuhro, which was reviewing the university’s audit paras for 2022 and 2023.
Vice-Chancellor Dr Nusrat Shah, Director Finance Muhammad Rafique Sarki and officials of the Sindh Higher Education Commission attended the meeting.
The meeting was told that seven SMBBMU doctors were shortlisted under the federal Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) PSDP scholarship project and sent abroad in 2016. Three of them did not return.
The VC named them as Dr Shah Alam Solangi, who went to China; Dr Zafar Ali Abro, who went to Germany, and Dr Benazir Abbasi, who went to London/Ireland.
Each doctor was paid $1,200 a month, the meeting heard, bringing monthly spending on the three to $3,600 and annual spending to $43,200. Over four years, a total of $129,600 was spent on them.
Audit officials objected that no action had been taken against the doctors, causing a loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer.
Asked by Mr Khuhro what steps had been taken to recover the money, the vice-chancellor said a petition had been filed in court, but the case was still pending and the doctors’ whereabouts were unknown.
She said the doctors had submitted land documents as surety and signed an agreement before leaving. “Once the court decides the matter, the university will initiate proceedings to auction the surety land to recover the amount,” she added.
Taking serious notice, the PAC directed the university to write to the immigration authorities and the relevant embassies about the three doctors and to ensure recovery of the entire sum spent on their PhDs.
Fake degree
The meeting also heard that a nursing lecturer’s degree had been found to be fake during a verification exercise.
On the PAC’s direction, the university had all 1,030 degrees held by its staff verified by the HEC. One of them, a BS Nursing degree held by lecturer Fareeda Badar, was found to be fake.
The lecturer was recruited in 2016 on an initial monthly salary of Rs45,000, which had risen to Rs150,000 by the time she left. She has since resigned.
The PAC directed the university to recover 10 years’ salary paid to her.
Finances
Briefing the committee on the university’s finances, Dr Shah said it had 33 affiliated colleges and institutes, 12 hostels and 3,000 undergraduate and 800 postgraduate students.
The university generates Rs1 billion in revenue from student fees, she said, and receives Rs3 billion from the provincial government and Rs150 million from the federal HEC.
Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2026
