PESHAWAR: The managing director of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Foundation has levelled serious allegations against its Board of Governors chairperson and has requested the adviser to chief minister on health to look into the matter and save the public sector entity from going into the hands of a private organisation.

The managing director of Health Foundation (HF), Dr Adnan Taj, said that BoG chairperson Dr Shabana Haider was head of a private organisation, ThinkWell Pakistan, and was trying to `hijack` the foundation, a public sector entity established by government to outsource hospitals to private partners.

In a letter, he wrote to health adviser Ihtisham Ali that the activities of BoG chairperson amounted to conflict of interests. He requested him to take action as per law.

The letter titled `whistle blowing against HF BoG under the legal framework and public policy of the government` said that a critical situation created by the new chairperson would damage the policy objectives achieved by HF, a statutory entity established under Khyber Pakhtunl(hwa Health Foundation Act, 2016.

It said that the objective of HF was to implement government`s policy regarding public-private partnership (PPP) for the health projects to improve coverage and healthcare delivery services.The functional structure of HF was approved by the then BoG under the rules but the abrupt approval of a new organogram by the BoG on January 13, 2025, without having legal rationale, would badly impact its operations and would create legal hurdles for it, the letter said.

Dr Adnan said that before formation of the current BoG, he worked with sincerity and completed the retendering process for outsourcing seven hospitals but the approval of the board was required to materialise those agreements. `When the new BoG was notified, we updated it regarding outsourcing process but it rejected the whole process on January 13, 2025,` he added.

He alleged that the chairperson of BoG was country director of Thinl(Well, a subsidiary of Thinl(Well Global USA, which was case of conflict of interests as it was also involved in entering into PPP with governments for running primary healthcare (PHC) and the same job was done by HF.

He said that its immediate impact was rejection of the procurement process, diligently performed by HF`s procurement committee as per law but the BoG rejected the whole process.

`Thinl(Well is using the name of HF on its official website to gain public attention and upon the technical expertise of HF, it is fixing its own badge through Dr Shabana,` he said.

Dr Adnan said that all the achievements were made under the previous BoG of HF. `Now it is manipulation onpart of Dr Shabana and ThinkWell to hijack all achievements and success stories of HF to malign it. How a private sector unregistered organisation, Thinl(Well, will tal(e over a public entity and pursue its own agenda by inducting its employees and consultants,` he questioned.

He said that as per law, the committees should be chaired by non-executive directors and the chairperson of BoG should not be member of any committee but Dr Shababa illegally appointed herself as member of human resource committee (HRC) of the foundation.

He said that Hassam Khan Durrani, also an employee of Thinl(Well Pakistan, was nominated as member of BoG but his name was turned down by provincial cabinet. Being employee of ThinkWell Pakistan, he was invited on the direction of Dr Shabana as co-opted member in 19th BoG meeting of HF, who led to present the illegal organogram to replace the existing statutory functional structure of the foundation with the one created by ThinkWell.

Dr Adnan aid that Nida Hameed Afridi, also an employee of ThinkWell Pakistan, attended 18th BoG meeting despite the fact that she was neither a member of the board, nor was invited to it. She attended the meeting and gave inputs, he added.

HF inked a memorandum of understanding with ThinkWell Global in November 2022 that was withdrawn by the managing director for the reason of being an unregistered INGO underPolicy for Regulation of International Non-governmental Organisations (INGOs) in Pakistan, 2015.

`Now, the chairperson of BoG is victimising the managing director and his team for cancellation of the MoU by approving the new organogram wherein the designations and functional structure have been changed with the intentions to bring in her own people or the ThinkWell mindset with ulterior motives,` said the letter.

Later on, ThinkWell offered technical assistance to HF regarding PHC`s outsourcing, which wasn`t accepted by the then BoG owing to its non-registration.

`The chairperson og BoG is directly engaged with private partners without knowledge of the borad and interferes in the routine management by checl(ing the record of human resource section while skipping the administration,` it said.

It said that two members of BoG also resigned owing to unbecoming attitude ofthe chairperson ofthe board.

Dr Shabana, when contacted, said there was nothing wrong in HF. She said that health secretary asked for repatriation of the managing director to department that was approved by BoG unanimously. She said that the managing director didn`t want to leave the foundation.

She said that private organisations running outsourced hospitals also had grievances against the managing director. `Our board works as per law.

The new BoG has top professionals to enforce government`s policy regarding PPP,` she added.