LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is said to have presented an inquiry report before the National Assembly’s standing committee on health about multi-million-rupee misappropriation in the Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB) and Centre of Applied Molecular Biology (CAMB) Lahore.
The meeting of the committee, which met in the Allama Iqbal Medical College/Jinnah Hospital in Lahore on January 19 under Dr Nadeem Ehsan, was attended, among others, by representatives of ministries of health, science and technology and the Higher Education Commission.
The report, compiled by a four-member team of FIA Lahore headed by Additional Director Mian Riaz Ahmad, presented a progress report on an inquiry initiated by the ministry of science and technology against a senior scientist, Dr Riazuddin.
According to the FIA report, Dr Riazuddin served as the director in the centre of excellence between 1986 and 2004 and got phased five-year extensions in his tenure.
The report accused Dr Riazuddin of opening several accounts on behalf of the centre, which he “continued to operate even after the end of his tenure”, withdrawing from a $100,000 grant given by the Islamic Development Bank, which was received via the ministry of science and technology on June 3, 2008.
The amount has so far remained untraced.
Interestingly, Dr Riazuddin appointed his daughter Saima Riaz and her husband, Dr Riaz, as teachers in the faculty despite their being abroad, siphoning away as much as Rs8.5 million.
FIA Punjab Director Zafar Ahmad Qureshi on contacting told The Express Tribune that matters in all projects of the
two institutes would be reassessed.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 21st, 2011.
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