Alleged anomalies: AMTI Board of Governors meeting yet to be convened

ABBOTTABAD: The hospital management with the alleged connivance of a former chairman of the Board of Governors (BoG) of the Ayub Medical and Teaching Institute (AMTI) sabotaged the official meeting of the board scheduled to be held on Monday, said sources.

The meeting had been convened by three board members, including a senior lawyer Asad Khan Jadoon.He forwarded a nine-point agenda to the BoG secretary having issues such as the purchase of items for various stores and medicines worth over 930 million rupees in Ayub Teaching Hospital allegedly without the BoG approval besides other alleged irregularities including violating the ban.

The scheduled meeting was forcibly stopped by the Security in charge of the Ayub Teaching Hospital who locked the BoG AMTI office and refused the secretary of BoG to enter the office.

Secretary BoG Hamid Khan in his complaint letter to the board said he was asked by the hospital’s security officer not to enter in the office as allegedly directed by the hospital director. He later locked the BoG office.

Security In-charge of ATH Major (R) Zukfiqar, when contacted confirmed to The News that he had followed the orders of the hospital director to lock the BoG office. He said he was bound to obey the orders of the hospital director.

The board members are vetting the official evidence available to them which shows that the ATH authorities had allegedly unlawfully purchased medicines & other items worth Rs 93,51,19,775 without the board’s approval.

It was learnt that these purchases were made during the last 10 months when the acting hospital director was installed and there was a ban on buying.

According to the document electrical stores items worth Rs.10360411/- were purchased; Rs.19082448/- were spent on IT equipment; Rs.9790217 /-on electro medical stores; Rs.180354509/- on surgical disposable stores items; Rs. 606504552/-on medical store items; Rs. 83192104/- on surgical pathology items and Rs 25835534/- were spent on maintenance stores. The Procurement Department of the hospital was ignored in the purchases.

The beneficiaries including the acting managers allegedly tried hard to postpone the proposed board meeting. On the one hand, they were trying to pressure the BoG secretary while trying to involve the outgoing chairman for his influence on the other.

The outgoing chairman of the board Mushtaq Jadoon, who has already been appointed advisor & regional head of Federal Ombudsman Office in Peshawar and the notification was issued on May 22. His resignation as AMTI BoG chairman has been accepted during the recent meeting of the search & nomination council.

Meanwhile, the former chairman of the BoG Mushtaq Jadoon, when contacted by phone, justified the delay in the proposed meeting of the AMTI board.However, he failed to reply when his attention was invited to the notification about his resignation and his appointment as advisor / regional head Federal Ombudsman in Peshawar.