Five-member body to probe accusations against NGO running Children Hospital

A five-member committee has been formed by the Sindh health department to investigate allegations of mismanagement on the part of the Poverty Eradication Initiative (PEI), an Islamabad-based NGO running the Sindh Government Children Hospital in North Nazimabad.

The charges of mismanagement against the PEI had led to a halt in the release of funds to the NGO, due to which doctors and staff at the hospital could not be remunerated and were eventually forced to go on strike.

The health department formed the committee after Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah approved the proposal. The committee is headed by Prof Tariq Mahmood, a senior professor at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), and its other members include civil society activist Dr Shoaib Sultan, paediatrician Dr Waseem Jamalvi, a representative from Auditor General Sindh office and a deputy director of Public Private Partnership Node Sindh.

The five members have been tasked with investigating the accusations against the NGO levelled by an independent auditor in 15 days and report their findings to the health department. The Sindh Government Children Hospital was handed over to the NGO a couple of years back under the public private partnership mode. The health facility was earlier renovated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) at a cost of nearly two billion rupees.

Issues surfaced in the affairs of the hospital around three months ago when the provincial government stopped releasing funds to the hospital as per its agreement with the NGO after an independent auditor raised some objections over misuse of funds and mismanagement in the affairs of the hospital.

Meanwhile, the decision to form a five-member investigation committee was not welcomed by the PEI officials who saw it as a conspiracy to snatch the hospital from them and hand it over to another NGO, which was more influential and was planning to take over the hospital with more funds from the government.