The sub-committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Parliament has asked the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) to provide details about the experience and qualification of the company that it had selected to conduct the Medical & Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT).
It met under the chairmanship of Convener of the Committee, Shahida Akhtar Ali, and sought all the details of the MDCAT from the PMC for admission to medical colleges, as several thousand applicants have been deprived of admissions because of erroneous MDCAT results.
Convener Shahida Akhtar Ali spoke about MDCAT and mentioned that the candidates had been told to check their results online. She also asked officials from the Ministry of Health how candidates from areas without internet connectivity had been able to access their results online after two or three days of the MDCAT.
The Convener stated that candidates had been picked from the supplementary tests, and those who were on the first merit list had been dropped. She also questioned the procedure and the qualification of the company the PMC had hired to conduct the online test. She remarked that the system is faulty and has resulted in the wastage of a year for many candidates.
The committee sought a detailed inquiry report on the arrangements made by the company to conduct MDCAT.
Committee member Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayyad also endorsed the Convener’s remarks and demanded that the President and Vice-President of the PMC be summoned for a briefing about the issues of PMC to the committee.
The committee also asked about the status of a forensic audit of the federal government Polyclinic Hospital. Convener Ali then told the Secretary of Health to check if the three-year-long forensic audit is complete. The Secretary responded that he would determine the audit stage, and the committee gave the Ministry of Health 30 days to report on the forensic audit.
The attendees of the meeting also reviewed the audit objections by the Ministry of Health for the years 2010-11 to 2017-18, with the instructions that a departmental accounts committee of the ministry should be conducted on a regular basis and the committee should be informed of the minutes of the meeting.
