HYDERABAD, Aug 26: A former dean of the Sindh Agriculture University (SAU) on Tuesday held the SAU vice-chancellor, his sons and ‘a coterie of sycophants’ responsible for administrative and financial irregularities and demanded an inquiry into the university’s affairs.

The chairman of the Forum for Restoration of Responsible Governance in Universities and Restoration of Academic Standards in Sindh and former dean, Prof Ameer Ali Qadri, said at a news conference at the press club that the people found guilty after the inquiry should be made accountable and the representatives of the forum should be appointed to the proposed inquiry committee.

Prof Qadri said that the forum had pointed out bad governance, malpractices and financial irregularities of the vice-chancellor Dr Basheer Ahmed Shaikh in a white paper published last year.

He said that the forum had demanded through the white paper a detailed audit of financial and academic affairs or replacement of the VC. The university had remained closed for all purposes for last two months as the VC and his team had completely failed to hold talks with the agitating staff and students, he said.

Prof Qadri believed that the university would not be able to deliver goods as long as Dr Shaikh and his team were at the helm of affairs. This was not the first time Dr Shaikh had failed as head of an institution, he had earlier been forced to end prematurely his tenure as VC of Shah Latif University, he said. And last but not the least, he was also ousted from the Pakistan Science Foundation, he claimed.

What was the most important thing at the moment was to rescue the prestigious university that provided higher education in agriculture to the students of Sindh, Balochistan, Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir, he stressed.

“It’s a matter of serious concern that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has relegated the university to the bottom of its rankings list during Dr Shaikh’s tenure,” he said.

Likewise, zero marks had been awarded to the university on subscription of journals, which meant no genuine research work had been carried out or encouraged by the SAU, he added.

He said that Dr Shaikh had seriously discouraged the PhD programme by making substantial cut in the remuneration to scholars. The university was paying only Rs200 per lecture to its PhD scholars as against Rs2,000 to 3,000 per lecture prescribed by the HEC, he said.

He said that the university had not taken any steps to modernise research laboratories and allocated a major chunk of total budget to the Institute of Food Technology, which was not even one of the core subjects of agriculture, such as soil science, plant breeding, agronomy and horticulture.

Referring to some reports, he said that the university had appointed 200 persons, which mostly included the VC’s sons and daughters and relatives of his team of sycophants.

On the basis of the huge pile of charges against the VC, Prof Qadri said, he appealed to higher authorities to remove him immediately and demanded that the salary of protesting employees be released forthwith.

No law allowed the VC to withhold salary and according to the Supreme Court orders, even the salary of suspended employees could not be withheld, he said.

The secretary of the Sindh chapter of the All-Universities Academic Association, Prof Badar Soomro, Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association acting president Prof Yaqoob Chandio and a number of academicians were present at the press conference.