Irfan Nadeem, former joint secretary Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), on Wednesday accused Dr Sheikh Riazuddin - former Director of Centre for Applied Molecular Biology (CAMB) - of pocketing $100,000, donated to the ministry by a top financial institution for conducting research in the field of medicine.
Irfan Nadeem, while talking to Business Recorder, said that the allegations levelled against him in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) were totally baseless, as investigations carried out by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had clearly shown that Dr Riazuddin illegally transferred $100,000 to Allama Iqbal Medical College without the permission of the competent authorities. "In order to initiate the investigations against Dr Riazuddin regarding the misappropriation of millions of rupees in CAMB, I wrote a letter to FIA in December, 2010," he added.
The PAC in its meeting on Tuesday with Yasmeen Rehman in the chair observed that Irfan Nadeem had not only disrupted the overall research and development of the low-cost injection of interferon, the medicine used for the treatment of Hepatitis, but also used fake documents to mislead the FIA with the intention of causing harm to Dr Riazuddin.
According to documents available with Business Recorder, Dr Riazuddin had approached Lahore High Court, Multan bench, seeking a stay order against investigation being carried out by FIA, which was granted by the court. The investigating agency had also submitted its comments to the court in light of the inquiry against Dr Riazuddin, maintaining the allegations against him were true. They had also prayed the court to put Riazuddin''s name on ECL, which was subsequently done by the court.
The FIA Lahore officials, in their comments submitted to LHC Multan branch said: "It has been established that Dr S. Riazuddin transferred the amount of prize money worth $100,000/- from A/c No 02068600559 (Title Dr S Riazuddin Prize Money) of ABL Canal View, Lahore to A/c No 124479000438603 of HBL Allama Iqbal Medical College/Jinnah Hospital Branch Lahore without permission of the competent authorities. The prize was awarded to CAMB and not to any individual.......A/c No 01-200-3725-4 titled as Grants Misc was opened by Dr S. Riazuddin with his own residential address; ie 10-P Model Town, Lahore instead of CAMB''s address. This account was not in the knowledge of MoST authorities. Transactions in this account are quite alarming. Dr S. Riazuddin transferred huge amounts from various bank accounts to this accounts after termination of his contract."
The officials had also informed the court that during enquiry proceedings, two research projects of utmost importance - HCV Hepatitis Patients'' and ''Pak Kazakhstan P.U Lahore - were un-earthed, which were also not in the knowledge of the concerned ministry. The court was further told that the instant enquiry involves voluminous record and definitely could not be completed in just 20 to 25 days for facts needed to be thrashed thoroughly. Besides, all projects of CAMB & CEMB require to be evaluated separately in terms of foreign purchase (equipment and consumable material), local purchase and administrative expenses.
"Foreign and local purchases require to be physically evaluated and cross checked with the stock registers. Remaining details of CAMB & CEMB accounts would be obtained as every major bank transaction require to be evaluated and civil work regarding establishment of CAMB laboratories and office building require to be technically evaluated," they added.
When contacted, Dr Riazuddin said that the bureaucracy played all the tricks to block the marketing of the locally manufactured Interferon injection and even after making strenuous efforts Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB) failed to present the final product of interferon for clinical tests.
He further claimed that Dr Atta-ur Rehman, the then chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) wrote a letter to the Ministry of Health in 2008, seeking permission for clinical trials as such trials require the financial funding of Rs 1.5-2 million that had to be provided by the Ministry of Health but the Ministry did not approve the clinical test to be carried out by CEMB," he added. He laughed off all the allegations, levelled against him, saying that his hands are clean.
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