Former caretaker Health Minister Dr Saad Khalid Niaz has claimed that there were several administrative and financial irregularities in the health sector of Sindh, citing issues with the purchase of robots and granting money to charitable organisations.

“The first major issue was related to robots and I have a clear stand that robots might be good things but shall we spend Rs4 billion on such things or improving the infant and maternal mortality rates which are one of the highest in the world,” he said in an interview with Imran Sultan on his show Dus aired on Aaj News on Saturday.

He was part of the interim Sindh cabinet led by former caretaker Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar. According to media reports, the two had arguments about the purchase of robots.

They even exchanged words and reportedly accused each other of going beyond the defined mandate of the caretakers at the farewell meeting of the cabinet.

Niaz added that the rate of robots officially given to them was much higher. According to the information available to him, the price of such robots in England was £600,000 and those purchased in the province were more than worth Rs1 billion.

“If you calculate it you will know how much it comes,” he said and called for investigation into it. Niaz refrained from saying that anyone was involved in the alleged corruption.

But Niaz said that the £600,000 would be equal to Rs200 million to Rs250 million. He added that there was space for an investigation into it. The former minister shared that he did not get enough support from the government when he wanted to form a committee.

When asked about the whopping amount granted to the charitable organisations, he said that the procedure to grant funds to such institutions was not appropriate.

“Firstly, it is such a big amount. It was not a day-to-day matter for the caretaker government,” he said and added that it was up to the new government to deal with it.

“But the procedure as far as I know, the summary cannot go forward after bypassing the minister and it happened,” Niaz said.

The former minister went on to add that the interim caretaker cabinet sought details from the organisations which have taken money from the government.

“We had three things from them: salary and staff, per day cost, and routine procedures to compare the cost of government facilities and the cost of charitable organisations, especially those who were given high amounts by the Sindh government.”

He shared that except for one organisation, they got information from all organisations.

“If you are running a charitable hospital and its cost per patient is more or equivalent to the general ward patient of the private hospital, then we should take a step back and think we can decrease our funding. This is the pressure that should go on charitable organisations each one of them that we have to provide cost-effective treatment,” Niaz said.

He explicitly said that funding was not stopped for any organisation amidst the development.