KARACHI, Oct 25: Former provincial health minister Maj-Gen Ahsan Ahmed has categorically denied the allegations of corruption, and maladministration levelled against him by the Sindh Governor, Muhammedmian Soomro.
“How did all this dawn to the governor just 12 hours after my joining Pakistan Peoples Party as my performance was appreciated only 15 days back during a cabinet meeting?” he ridiculed.
Gen Ahsan claimed that after his press conference on Wednesday, his personal secretary, the MS of Civil Hospital, DGO Health and health secretary were summoned and detained at the Governor’s House where they were grilled for hours to, he alleged, “force them to implicate me in cases.”
Talking to Dawn, a seemingly scared ex-minister expressed apprehension of threat to his life for defying the wish of Brig Akhtar Zamin, the Governor’s Principal Secretary, to join the PML-Q and, instead, joining the PPP.
Gen Ahsan, after tendering his resignation as minister on Wednesday morning, had revealed that his differences with the government were over its policies, including rigging in the recently held polls, which led him to part ways with the government.
Commenting on the Governor’s allegations of ‘corruption’ against him and the ‘maladministration and malfunctioning’ of the departments he headed, the ex-minister said that he was inducted in the cabinet in June 2000. Only two months later, he added, he was appointed Chairman of the Good Governance Committee (GGC) with responsibility to supervize discipline and performance of 13 federal and 200 provincial bureaucrats. During 18 months of chairmanship, he studied their cases and recommended action as per the law, rules and regulations, he revealed.
He said that on the occasion of presenting the report as GGC chairman to the cabinet, he requested the Governor to entrust some other minister with the task. However, he said, the Governor remarked: “No one except you can dispense with the responsibility.”
Only three months back, he recalled, he was invited to Islamabad where President Musharraf presented him the best performance award for his services in the field of public and private partnership. “What else could be the best proof of my performance?” he questioned.
Gen Ahsan argued that if the Governor had seen any fault in his performance or flaw in his handling of affairs, why did not he raise his voice at that time?
He proudly stated that it was his efforts which turned the Liaquat Medical College, Hyderabad, into the first medical university in the public sector to have added community medicine, forensic and research centres during last 20 months. He also referred to the shields awarded to him in recognition of his services in AIDS control programme.
Furthermore, he said, he managed to contain TB up to 70 per cent in Sindh with the help of the World Health Organization. The performance, he added, was reflected in the WHO and ADB reports read out in the Sindh cabinet meeting 15 days back.
He deplored the manner in which he was made to vacate his official residence on 24-hour notice on the instructions of the secretary to the Governor and said that a minister has to be given 15-day time for the purpose as per the relevant rules. He said that it was height of humiliation that police personnel and other functionaries had gathered at the residence to force him out and while he and his family were preparing to leave, the functionaries started throwing the belongings out on the footpath.
He said that the two telephones, one of them personal, were disconnected as soon as the resignation reached the authorities.
Gen Ahsan denied receiving any phone call from the Governor’s House on Wednesday before he handed over his resignation to the principal secretary to the Governor.