HYDERABAD: Even the Jan 10 ruling of Supreme Court upholding a Sindh Services Tribunal order has so far failed to stop a grade-19 officer of the provincial government from exercising powers of a grade-20 officer and practically running all administrative and financial affairs of the Liaquat University Hospital (LUH), the second largest tertiary care hospital of the province.

Apparently due to his political clout, the officer, Abdul Sattar Jatoi, had earned back to back promotions, including the one to grade-20, and also postings of his choice. He had been given extraordinary favours and preferences over his seniors. He then star­ted exercising the powers of LUH medical superintendent though several eligible officers held the position upon being posted.

Until recently, Mr Jatoi had been dealing with administrative affairs, financial transactions and procurement of medicines and equipment as well as awarding of civil contracts etc at the hospital. Any MS in his presence would play second fiddle to him.

Abdul Sattar Jatoi’s appeal against demotion to grade-19 was rejected on Jan 10

Mr Jatoi’s promotion to grade-20 was challenged by his senior colleagues in the services tribunal which, on Sept 22, 2020 demoted him to grade-19. The tribunal termed Mr Jatoi’s promotions “a unique case of nepotism and favouritism” and said it was in violation of a relevant Supreme Court judgement pronounced in 2013.

The officer then moved SC, where a bench headed by then Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed dismissed his appeal on Jan 10 and observed that an amendment to rules was ‘person-specific’.

The SC order said that the wish list of appellant did not end here and departmental authority continued to be too eager to accommodate him to the post of appellant’s own desire. By March 6, 2018 notification, rules were amended so that appellant can be appointed to the post (BS-20) of director administration, accounts & development in health department. This amendment to the rules was ‘person-specific’ to accommodate appellant alone and the appellant, out of so many other batch-mates in BS-19, was granted promotion on June 1, 2018, it added.

The tribunal’s order was dispatched to the services, general administration & coordination department (SGA&CD) secretary and health secretary from the office of the Sindh advocate general on Jan 22. The two departments were supposed to de-notify the officer’s promotions but none of them appeared ready to proceed against Mr Jatoi, who was being backed by a SGA&CD senior officer to enable him to continue on the said position regardless of the SC order.

The officer even got a clinical side (BS-19) post of additional MS re-designated as ‘director administration’ in order to win questionable promotions.

Dr Pir Manzoor, the Sindh general secretary of his own faction of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), said that Sindh government had created a unique post of ‘director finance, administration & planning’ for him.

Probe into Rs350m cheque

The LUH administration is also facing an inquiry into the issuance of a Rs350m cheque pertaining to the procurement of medicines during the current fiscal year. The procurement is one of the several matters being looked after by Mr Jatoi’s staff.

Health sources said the cheque with ‘scanned’ signature of section officer (SO) of the health department was given to the Hyderabad district accounts officer (DAO), who forwarded it to the health department for verification after finding it ‘doubtful’.

“The DAO found the signature suspicious and forwarded it to health department in Karachi. The amount of the cheque crosses the 15pc ceiling allowed for local purchase out of the total LUH budget,” said an LUH source.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2022