Pakistan to screen degrees of government staff

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani authorities have been asked to verify the academic certificates of all government employees.

“Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has directed the establishment division that educational degrees of the employees working in all federal government institutions may be verified by the respective heads of the institution,” an official announcement said.

The deadline to complete the process is April 4, Dawn reported Sunday.

More than 350,000 employees are working in various government institutions across the country.

Gilani also said that the Federal Public Service Commission should ensure authenticity of degrees of the candidates who appear in examinations conducted for selection in government services.

Analysts say that some parliamentarians have been urging the prime minister to initiate the process because they believe that the exercise to verify the degrees of lawmakers is being carried out at the behest of the bureaucracy to malign the reputation of the elected representatives.

The process to verify degrees of lawmakers was initiated in July last year following an order of the Supreme Court.

The apex court, while hearing the petitions filed by various candidates against their rivals challenging their academic degrees, directed the Election commission of Pakistan (ECP) to carry out the exercise and take legal action against the defaulters.

According to sources in the ECP, the commission had so far verified degrees of 816 elected representatives. Of them, the degrees of 60 lawmakers were found to be fake.

The ECP has recently sent the names of 14 parliamentarians to the respective district police officers seeking to initiate legal process against them.