ISLAMABAD – As the process of verification of educational documents of 1,168 members of the Senate, National and provincial assemblies remains incomplete despite the passage of more than eight months, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Saturday opened another Pandora’s Box by directing the Establishment Division to verify the degrees of all federal government employees by April 4.
Gilani asked the Establishment Division to verify the authenticity of educational degrees of the employees working in all federal government institutions. By issuing such directive, Gilani has also accepted a long-standing demand by angry parliamentarians whose educational credentials, after being challenged by political opponents and on directions of the Supreme Court, are being processed for verification for the last eight months.
The prime minister issued the directive in the time when the verification of the degrees of around 270 MPs is still pending, with the ball rolling between the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The ECP has recently issued a list of MPs who failed to submit complete educational degrees despite repeated requests.
In the last eight months a number of parliamentarians have either resigned or have been disqualified by the courts on holding fake degrees while the ECP heard fake-degree cases of around 54 MPs. The ECP has also referred the cases of 14 MPs to the district police officers (DPOs) concerned for registering FIRs on forgery charges.
Meanwhile, the ECP is sitting on the cases of 21 MPs whose degrees have been proven fake at hearings in the ECP. The prime minister also wanted the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) to ensure authenticity of the certificates of all the candidates appearing for selection in the government service.
“It is an easy task for the FPSC to get degrees/certificates verified of all successful CSS candidates but the verification of tens of thousands of existing federal government employees will complicate the process in favour of the embattled MPs,” an official of the Establishment Division said. He said it was unlikely that the task could be accomplished by April 4.
“First, the educational certificates of tens of thousands of federal government employees will be dispatched to relevant boards of secondary and higher secondary education. Then, on verification of certificates, their degrees will be verified by the HEC as it does not verify degrees exclusively without certified certificates and the whole process cannot be completed within two months timeframe,” he added. Establishment Secretary Abdul Rauf Chaudhry said he had not received Gilani’s directions yet.
“I was informed by the prime minister’s principal secretary over phone,” he said. To a question regarding the magnitude of the task, he said, “There is no issue if the direction is about new inductions, but if the PM has directed to get degrees and certificates of all existing employees verified, then surely its volume will be huge.”
