KABUL (SW) – Evidence collected by Salam Watandar indicates former health minister Ferozuddin Feroz was involved in embezzlement of funds, corruption and violations of laws.
Feroz was in charge of this ministry for more than five years before he was replaced by the government recently.
The evidence shows that the former minister, after taking over the ministry, handed over several large-scale projects to his own private firm under the name of GIA or Afghanistan Governance Strengthening and Institute of Public Health Management and Research Courses. He is also complicit in appointing Shafeequllah Shaheem, deputy head of finance at IPHMRC as deputy health minister.
Feroz also appointed Dr. Hedayatullah Stanekzai, head of the IPHMRC, as senior adviser at the public health ministry.
Sources say that after the formation of the triangle of "Feroz, Shaheem and Stanekzai" at the health ministry, they colluded and cooperated in several projects, the big example of which is the "Second Cluster" project in Ghazni province. This project was handed over to the IPHMRC without the due legal process at a throwaway rate.
We wished to have the views of Dr. Feroz, but the former minister refused to respond despite repeated contacts and messages by Salam Watandar.
Documents obtained from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that Feroz also signed a letter asking to attend the 31st International Congress of Midwives. In addition to himself, this letter also demanded that Dr. Mohammad Davood Azimi, the head of human resources and a person named Mustafa Sharifi, who has been introduced as the secretary / assistant, attend the midwives congress.
Sources told Salam Watandar that Mustafa Sharifi, the son of Dr. Feroz, is not an employee of the Ministry of Public Health, but was fraudulently appointed as secretary for the trip to Canada, and from there he has not returned to Afghanistan.
Akmal Samsour, a spokesman for the MoPH, said while responding to a question about it that there is no individual by the name of Mustafa Sharifi registered as employee. He added that based on the documents, in 2017, only the former minister Feroz and Davood Azimi, head of human resources at the MoPH, traveled to Canada to attend the 31st Midwives Congress. However, Samsor refused to provide any information about the salaries and perks of Shahim and Stanekzai and their links to the IPHMRC.
When contacted, Zahra Mirzaei, president of the Midwives Association of Afghanistan, said that in 2017, a number of midwives attended a meeting at the MoPH on the trip to Canada. According to her, the association has no information on the return or non-return of midwives who traveled to Canada for the congress.
Recently, many more allegations, including smuggling of ventilators to Pakistan and embezzlement of funds meant for fighting coronavirus pandemic, have been levelled against the former leadership of the health ministry.
ENDS
