PESHAWAR, June 14: The provincial health department has formed a three-member committee to hold inquiry against former principal of Bannu Medical College and chief executive of Khalifa Gul Nawaz Hospital Professor Khan Nawaz over alleged illegal appointments and irregularities in purchase of medicines and equipment, official sources at the secretariat have said.
The sources told Dawn that Professor Nawaz was removed from the two posts for the said charges.
A former head of Khyber Girls Medical College pathology department, Professor Nawaz was made the BMC principal and later chief executive of Khalifa Gul Nawaz Hospital, Bannu, last year. He had quit his post at the KGMC.
When contacted, special secretary (health) Professor Noorul Iman said he would remain professor at KGMC until the outcome of the inquiry report. He said the health department had formed an inquiry team on recommendations of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa standing committee on health, which had received some complaints.
The sources, however, said the professor created interesting situation when he declared himself as the head of pathology department at KGMC last week.
“Professor Khan Nawaz issued office order saying he was the head of the KGMC. Such orders were usually issued from office of principal,” a source said.
He said the faculty members at KGMC had been saddened by the government’s decision to send a person facing inquiry into the alleged corruption.
The sources said KGMC had promoted a professor as head of the department when the post became vacant after the joining of the BMC.
They said he was nearing retirement due to which he had been sent to KGMC to stay there.
The sources said the KGMC administration was also unhappy over his transfer and feared that his presence might affect the institute academically if he continued to pose himself as the head of the department.
Officials at the secretariat said Khan Nawaz would work as the professor as the exiting head of the department had been appointed after fulfillment of all formalities. They said the exiting female head of the department also felt threatened after his transfer.
Officials at the health department said they had issued the directives to KGMC to accept his arrival as professor not head of the department. “He will work as professor there as the government cannot demote the existing head of the department without reason,” an official said.
The officials said an associate professor also got promoted to rank of professor after his departure.