Dawn - July 21

Degrees’ Debacle

THE saga of lawmakers’ fake degrees has taken yet another twist. It emerged on Monday that the verification process of the legislators’ educational qualifications may take longer than expected. The Election Commission of Pakistan has expressed a lack of confidence in the way the Higher Education Commission is conducting the process of scrutiny. It will now re-verify the HEC’s findings. According to the ECP secretary, every lawmaker whose degree has been declared fake would be given the chance of a personal hearing “to prove their claim”. The secretary was also quoted as saying that “we don’t need anybody’s direction on how to do our job”. If this were true the fake degrees’ issue would not have emerged in the first place. What can also prolong matters is that the HEC will now have to submit its findings to the education ministry, instead of directly to a parliamentary committee on education.

The HEC appears to be doing an impartial job. Without naming names, it declared the degrees of 37 lawmakers to be bogus. Resultantly, the government was seen to apply pressure tactics to HEC chairman Javaid Laghari when his brother Farooq Laghari was picked up by security men on July 12 in Hyderabad. Farooq Laghari was charged with corruption during his tenure as DCO of Tando Mohammad Khan. Reg ardless of the veracity of the claims against him, the timing of Mr Laghari’s ar rest casts a dubious shad ow on the government’s in tentions. It strengthens the belief that his arrest was a pressure tactic aimed at harassing the HEC head. Prime Minister Gilani’s in tervention — in the after math of which Farooq Laghari was released on bail — indicates the gov ernment’s involvement in the harassment of Javaid Laghari in order to influ ence the verification proc ess. Mr Gilani also asked the Sindh chief minister to “avoid any victimisation” of the Laghari family after the HEC head met the pre mier on Monday. The fact that a democratic govern ment can apply pressure tactics more suited to total itarian regimes is trou bling.

The issue has dragged on long enough. The gov ernment must not inter fere in the verification process and refrain from harassing those tasked with scrutinising the de grees. The issue needs clo sure so that the country can move on. The lack of a clear direction is fuelling speculations about mid term elections, which is not what the country needs at this point. The government cannot delay the issue indefinitely hop ing that it will go away. The matter needs to be re solved — and the best way forward is for the task to be accomplished honestly and speedily.

Source : http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=21_07_2010_007_001