Health secretary on the way out

Islamabad : After the installation of the PTI government in the centre, officials in the national health services and regulation ministry strongly feel that the change of their top boss is imminent over his close association in the past with the Sharifs, the arch-rival of newly-elected Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Captain (r) Zahid Saeed, a BPS-22 officer, was made the secretary of the health services ministry by the caretaker government late June after he remained Punjab’s chief secretary for over two years during the Shahbaz Sharif government.

Before being picked as the top administrative post of the country’s largest province by the Sharifs, he acted as the senior member of the Board of Revenue and Rawalpindi’s chief commissioner.

As the chief commissioner of Rawalpindi, Zahid Saeed also oversaw the multibillion rupees Islamabad-Rawalpindi Metro Bus Service initiative as project director and was even given away the President’s Award for Pride of Performance for ‘public service’. He is also facing a National Accountability Bureau investigation over alleged corruption in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi Metro Bus Service project.

The PTI government has reportedly made a list of federal bureaucrats, who were considered to be close to the Sharifs, for imminent replacement and health services secretary Zahid Saeed is among them.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has picked Rawalpindi PTI MNA Aamer Mehmood Kiani as the health services minister, who will assume the office after taking oath (today).