As many as five former and sitting faculty members of the Institute of Business and Management (IB&M), University of Engineering and Technology (UET) have pointed out gross irregularities in academic, financial and administrative affairs of IB&M, UET.
These faculty members sent a White Paper to Governor Punjab Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Chief Justice Lahore High Court Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry and pointed out certain irregularities mentioning therein that the management of IB&M had not followed policies, procedures and rules in running the affairs.
As per contents of White Paper, financial irregularities were pointed out by the Resident Auditor of the UET but no action was taken by the university administration. In its letter to the Vice-Chancellor UET, Resident Auditor recommended special audit of the accounts of the IB&M but no action was taken.
The Resident Auditor pointed out that director IB&M was authorised to incur expenditures maximum of Rs 2000 on any one item from the money at his disposal while in violation of the statues he paid even seven hundred time excess from the permanent advance ignoring the provision of the law. The state of financial matters at IB&M can also be evident from the fact that no income tax statements were provided to IB&M employees. Even monthly salary slips are not available.
When contacted Vice-Chancellor UET, General Muhammad Akram told Business Recorder that they had completed the internal audit of the IB&M and also selected Mansha Associates for carrying out external audit and they will start their work within two or three days.
About the internal auditors remarks, he said that internal auditor was carried out on his directions and the remarks given by the auditor is a procedural wording of the auditor.
Vice chancellor UET, Lieutenant General Muhammad Akram Khan (Retd) termed the whole episode "a personal rivalry" of the faculty against the institute's director. The whole issue had been blown out of proportion otherwise there was nothing serious in it, he went on to say.
He said that the institute was established in May 2009 with full administrative and financial autonomy. He admitted the IB&M director had spent money lavishly and also failed to arrange external audit on completion of the first year. He said, "We have put the house in order and tighten control over the institute ensuring that its autonomy might not be compromised." He also claimed that the chief minister's committee had also visited the institute and held investigations.
The white paper said that the institute administration had not organised an external audit for the last two years, which was supposed to be done every year. It also said that expenditure in many heads in the 2010-2011 budget has far exceeded the allocated amount. For example, annual allocation for TCS mail of Rs 100,000 was consumed during the first couple of months of the fiscal year. There is no ongoing monetary mechanism for financial control such as monthly variance reports on accounts reconciliation statements in spite of strong advice given by faculty who developed the 2010-11 budget to implement use of such reports.
The white paper points out that that IB&M has struggled to attract quality candidates despite having the reputed name of UET behind it. Only 253 candidates applied for that fall 2010 admission in MBA programme.
It is interesting to note that in a UET press release, issued on August 11, a meeting of the Management Committee of IB&M was held in which the institute's director said that the UET had been running its Business Programme offering MBA and BBA programmes since May 2009.
"Since then there has been a phenomenal and record growth witnessed up till now; an estimated over 50 times in coming fall 2011, thus total number of students will be 1,000 and it will be the biggest department of UET Lahore," said press release adding that "The UET vice-chancellor appreciated IB&M for the progress made within two years."
It is pertinent to mention that Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has constituted a three-member committee for investigating into alleged irregularities committed by IB&M of UET, Lahore. The committee, made by Chief Minister consists of Director, Punjab University's Institute of Business Administration, Professor Dr Ehsan Malik, Punjab Higher Education Department Additional Secretary (academics) and Anti-Corruption Establishment, Punjab, Director Irfan.
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