PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is yet to start financial audit of medical teaching institutions despite announcement three months ago.

In January this year, health department had allocated Rs10.5 million for conducting audit of medical teaching institutions amid mounting pressure from lawmakers but the plan couldn’t be materialised.

The provincial assembly had passed Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act (MTIRA), 2015, that was implemented in teaching hospitals and their affiliated medical and dental colleges. So far, the law has been implemented in 11 institutions, which are called medical teaching institutions (MTIs).

The law has been passed to grant administrative and financial autonomy to MTIs and free them from political and bureaucratic control.

MTI-Policy Board chairman says audit of LRH in pipeline, no date fixed yet

MTIs are managed by their respective Board of Governors, members of which are nominated from private sector by search and nomination council headed by health minister and final approval accorded by chief minister. Unlike, more than 2,600 health facilities in the province, which operate under health department, MTIs are being managed by BoGs, which can be removed only by chief minister.

There has been widespread criticism from stakeholders about the audit of MTIs, which are receiving regular budget from government. All the departments getting budgets from government are subjected to audit on regular basis every year except MTIs, which have their own internal audit departments, free of government’s interference.

In December last year, Chief Minister Mohammad Sohail Afridi during his visit to Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) had expressed grave concern over mismanagement and lack of patients’ care there. He had also issued a statement wherein he had pointed out that despite getting Rs8 billion annually from government, situation in the health facility was pathetic.

Later, health department planned to hold audit of all MTIs but the plan didn’t see light of the day. The chairman of MTI-Policy Board, Prof Nausherwan Burki, had opposed the idea saying that MTIs would conduct audit through third party due to which health department put off its plan.

Prof Burki told Dawn that audit of LRH was in pipeline. “No date has been fixed yet,” he said. Health experts argue that financial audit of MTI was required to ensure transparent utilisation of the taxpayers’ money.

Finance department had directed health department to conduct financial audit of MTIs during the current financial year, warning if the task wasn’t completed within the current fiscal year, funds would be surrendered to government.

In July 2025, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Care Commission (HCC) had put off the MTIs’ audit plan on the directives of health department, saying that Policy Board would conduct it. The advertisement of HCC regarding hiring third party for MTIs’ audit appeared in newspapers on May 1 last year but health department asked it to put the exercise on hold.

Policy Board issued another audit advertisement on May 20. However, the audit has not been started so far. The government was under tremendous pressure to ensure transparency in utilisation of funds and improvement of patients’ care at MTIs.

There have been complaints from bureaucrats, politicians and the lawmakers of the ruling PTI about MTIs as each institution gets a one-line budget from government for use as per its requirements. MTIs have the authority under law to abolish and re-designate posts and recruit employees without government’s approval as BoGs manages all their affairs.

Some members of BoGs at different MTIs told Dawn that they had their own departments, which conducted internal and external audits every year wherein all auditable records, including cash receipts and expenditure, procurements, hiring, bank statements, clinical matters and details of promotion and appointments were scrutinised.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2026