- Capital’s civic agency to gather educational credentials of all gazetted, non-gazetted cadre
ISLAMABAD: After a lapse of September 20 deadline to gather the educational credentials of all employees hailing from both gazetted and non-gazetted cadre, the Capital Development Authority has finally initiated the process of verifying and cross-checking of their degrees and weed out those having fake, dubious degrees, it has been learnt.
Last month, in a circular issued by the CDA Board to Director where it asked the latter to gather educational qualifications, postings, previous transfers, ACRs and all other relevant information and get them verified from relevant authorities. It is pertinent to mention that previous attempts to get the degrees verified have met with defiance from the administration and the human resource departments.
The matter has been lingered on for the past five years owing to indifference and lack of interest of the departments. The ongoing process to get the degrees verified has till to date shown mix results. So far, out of 840 degrees received of the gazetted employees, including graduation, post-graduation, technical and non-technical cadres, 829 have been verified while 11 are under process due to various reasons.
Total non-gazetted employees who have submitted their documents is 3067, of which 2997 were verified. Sources said that 98 degrees of the employees were found bogus, forged and dubious and after the process is completed, the departmental inquiry will be initiated against them.
With around 5,000 posts vacant in its different directorates, the Capital Development Authority marches on with its stop-gap arrangements, officers on deputations and giving multiple charges to its officers and staff. The severe paucity of the employees not only adversely affects the functioning of the civic agency but also makes the position of the contract employees precarious.
According to sources at the HR Department, a total of 14,410 employees are presently working against the total sanctioned strength of 19,453 employees in the civic agency. Interestingly, 351 of the vacant positions include posts of gazetted officers of 17, 18, 19 and 20 grades.
On the non-gazette jobs, the stop-gap arrangements like hiring daily wage employees in place of permanent ones hold sway at lower clerical and menial jobs. Talking to Pakistan Today, CDA spokesperson Safdar Shah said that the process of the degree verification was ongoing and almost done.
“We’ll be done with the entire process in coming few days and after an action against those who have bogus degrees will be undertaken across the board without favour to anyone,” he said.