SZABMU VC tenure ending this week but successor not in sight

Islamabad: Though Professor Javed Akram is going to complete his four-year stint at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU) as its first vice-chancellor in the next five days, it is still not known who will fill his shoes for the next term.

Ironically, even the process to appoint the new vice-chancellor (VC) has yet to be begun by the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), which oversees this first and only government medical university of the capital city.

After the SZABMU’s establishment in March 2013 through an Act of Parliament, Prof Javed, the then principal of Lahore’s Allama Iqbal Medical College and elder brother of current commerce minister Pervaiz Malik, was made its first permanent vice-chancellor for four years on January 7, 2014, by the chancellor, the country’s president, on the recommendation of the Search Committee, which interviewed 39 candidates from within the country and abroad, including some professors of PIMS, Islamabad, the attached government hospital.

If the contract is strictly followed, January 6 will be his last day in office. However, his departure is surrounded by uncertainty until now as even the Search Committee hasn’t been founded to pick his successor. Professor Javed is understood to have written to the CADD secretary last August for the initiation of the process to find his successor believing that the nomination will take around six months, but to no avail.

Now, the chances are that he will asked to stay put until a permanent replacement is found. Under the law, the CADD is to form the VC Select Committee in consultation with the higher education regulator, HEC, to interview candidates before recommending three of them to the chancellor for picking one to fill the top SZABMU post.

The committee consisting of the representatives of the HEC, CADD, and education and law ministries requires the prime minister’s formal consent to become functional. Now as the committee has no existence, there’re fears about a long delay in the appointment of the next permanent VC to the university, which stands on the PIMS premises in the centre of Islamabad.

When contacted, Professor Javed insisted that he won’t cling on to the VC’s post and that the pro-VC would succeed him on term completion in line with the law. “I’m not interested in my tenure’s extension. In my opinion, there should be no extension and instead, the university should have a regular VC. What I’m only interested in is the flourishing of the university with a proper leadership in place as it is an asset for the entire country,” he said.

The VC regretted that the CADD didn’t heed his August request for the immediate start of search for his successor, which should have taken place automatically. He said he had written another letter to the CADD secretary on Monday hoping for the immediate action on the matter.

CADD spokesman Attiqur Rehman told ‘The News’ that the issue related to the separation of PIMS from the SZABMU had delayed the VC appointment process and since the issue was near resolution through legislation, he hoped for the early appointment of Professor Javed’s successor.