The early birds to fall in snowballing fake degrees scam

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The early birds to fall in snowballing fake degrees scam


Wednesday, June 30, 2010

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has sent its first list of four MPs, including one federal and one Balochistan minister and a senator, with foreign degrees, which look hilarious.

The HEC has revealed that, at least, two of these MPs were allowed to contest the 2008 polls by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) despite the HEC’s non-verification of their degrees in Nov 2007.

In its report sent to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Education, the HEC declared foreign degrees of four MPs, including a Senator, an MNA/federal minister and two members of the Balochistan Assembly having been acquired from non-chartered foreign universities that are unknown and even sound hilarious.

According to the sources, all these MPs, hailing from Balochistan, have shown their degrees acquired from some unknown foreign universities, which are non-chartered and, therefore, not recognised by the HEC.

These parliamentarians include BNP Senator Mir Israrullah Khan, PPP MNA and Federal Minister for Livestock and Dairy Development Mir Humayun Aziz and two MPAs from Balochistan Assembly, including Minister for Information Technology and provincial coordination on NGO programmes and universities, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Ms Shama Parveen Magsi and Ms Rubina Zafar Zehri.

Official documents, which include copies of the suspected degrees, also reveal that Assistant Director HEC Syed Asim Hussain wrote to M Rasheed Bhatti, Assistant Election Commissioner (HQ), officer of the Provincial Election Commissioner, Quetta, on Nov 30, 2007 and conveyed six cases of suspected degrees from non-recognised institutes, etc.

These cases included the names of Ms Shama Parveen Magsi, whose BBA degree from “International University of America-London” was even not recognised on Nov 30, 2007 but still the ECP allowed her to contest the elections. Similarly, Ms Rubina Zafar Zehri’s BBA degree from MiTech Institute of Management & Information Technology, Defence, Lahore, was also not recognised but like Ms Magsi, she too was allowed to contest the polls by the Election Commission.

Mir Israrullah Khan is shown to have done his “Bachelor of Business Administration” in 2004 from “International University of America (London)”. The HEC declared it as “Non-Chartered University”. Mir Israrullah Khan is a member of the Senate.

Yet another Mir from Balochistan — Mir Humayun Aziz — who is a member of the National Assembly, has declared to have done “Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing” in 1999 from “Fire International University”. The HEC declared it too as Non-Chartered University.

Ms Shama Parveen Magsi, an MPA of Balochistan Assembly, has submitted her BBA degree to have got in 2005 from the “International University of America (London), which too has been declared as Non-Chartered University”. Another lady MPA from Balochistan Assembly Ms Rubina Zafar Zehri did her BBA from “Mitech Institute of Management & Information Technology, Lahore” in 1999. This degree has been embossed by the Lahore based “duly authorised officers” of the university.

Copies of all these degrees are also available with The News. In case of Ms Rubina Zafar Zehri, the apparently foreign degree makes an interesting statement, which reads as: “Rubina Zafar Zehri having completed the prescribed studies and satisfied the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Business Administration has accordingly been admitted to that degree with all the rights, privileges and immunities thereunto appertaining In witness whereof, the Trustees of Mitech Institute of Management & Information Technology have caused this degree to be signed by the duly authorized officers of the Institute and embossed with its corporate at Lahore, Pakistan.”

The early birds to fall in snowballing fake degrees scam

[sonicboom]

Faking it


Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Ameer Bhutto

The scandal revolving around the fake university degrees of parliamentarians has begun to assume shocking proportions. It now appears that it is not a case of just a few isolated rotten apples in the barrel, or even a few whole barrels of rotten apples. At first it was reported that the degrees presented by approximately 140 members of the National Assembly, Senate and the four Provincial Assemblies to the Election Commission for the February 2008 general election warranted further investigation and verification. But more recent reports have claimed that up to 1100 members' degrees will be subjected to closer scrutiny. Keeping in mind that all the elected representatives at the national and provincial level amount to 1163, it appears that, in fact, almost the entire apple orchard is possibly under infestation. That is not to say that all of them do indeed have fake degrees, but if it was deemed necessary to widen the scope of the investigation so extensively, it speaks volumes about the integrity of those whom the nation chose to trust with the destiny of the nation.

There is no question that the minimum education requirement should never have been imposed on elected representatives. Musharraf introduced it in an effort to exclude some politicians from the electoral process. Such restrictions have no place in genuine democracy. The people are the political sovereign and cannot be stopped from electing anyone they want, regardless of their academic qualifications or lack thereof. Indeed, I have met many uneducated people in this country who are more worthy by far to shoulder the responsibilities of legislation and governance than the current lot by virtue of not just superior intellects but also honesty and sincere love of this land.

If a woodcutter can lift America out of the ravages of civil war and gain fame as one of the greatest presidents in American history and if a dockyard worker can lead a revolution and become the most popular president in the history of Poland, then who is to say that an illiterate hari or a laborer might not fare better than our current leaders? Far from facilitating the rise to the top of better qualified and sound people and making parliament more efficient and less corrupt, the minimum education requirement has succeeded only in unleashing the barefaced fraud and deception of parliamentarians that has embarrassed the nation yet again.

But the issue at hand is not whether this was a good law or a bad one, but whether or not it was a constitutionally valid law at the time of the February 2008 general elections. It clearly was, since it was enacted in accordance with the rules and was upheld by the Supreme Court in July 2002. One cannot be allowed a free rein to be selective in the obedience or application of laws. However, if a law is perceived to be repugnant and intolerable on moral, political or any other grounds on a wide enough scale, then there are two options available; a political or legally remedy must be sought by which it may be struck down either by parliament or the courts or, failing that, the mobilization of public opinion to reject the offensive law. Neither of these options were fully explored or exhausted in the runup to the 2008 general elections. At the very least, the political parties that are now condemning this law should have, as a last resort, refused to contest elections under this law if it rubbed their democratic and ethical sensibilities the wrong way, and should have demanded its withdrawal. But at that time such considerations took a back seat to the acquisition of power. It has only now occurred to them that this was a bad law when their parliamentary members' fraud has been exposed. Contesting elections under this law implied their acquiescence in it. The maxim of law is 'silence betokens consent.' Having derived the benefit of acquiring power under it, they are in no position to now denounce it. This is what they did with the NRO as well, though their slipperiness on that count has landed them in thick soup.

Apart from unearthing the dishonesty of the elected representatives, this scandal has also revealed a full blown institutional collapse on the part of the Election Commission (EC) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC). Ansar Abbasi's investigative report published in this newspaper on 24 June 2010 has revealed that there are either no degrees on HEC records for some current parliamentarians, or that there are irrelevant certificates on record, in lieu of the requisite BA degrees, that are inadequate to meet the legal requirement that prevailed back then.

How is this possible? Along with the nomination form, each electoral candidate is required to submit to the returning officer a long list of accompanying documents that in 2002 and 2008 included the BA degree and a certificate of its authenticity from the HEC. If any required document is missing, the candidate is given a few days to produce it, failing which his nomination paper is rejected and he is barred from contesting elections. How did these members manage to get their nomination papers approved without producing the required degree? And if it was provided at that time, why is it not present on HEC records now? This is a very serious issue that needs to be closely probed in to. Furthermore, the HEC was, evidently, extremely negligent in the verification of the degrees that were produced, since if it had been more thorough and diligent in its verification process, this whole mess might have been avoided.

The BA degree requirement was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in April 2008 and future aspiring parliamentarians need not lose sleep anymore about the procurement of fake degrees. Nevertheless, the deception practiced by some to get into the corridors of power lingers on like an ugly stain that defies removal or concealment despite all attempts at rinsing and camouflage. As if this was not enough, an effort is now reportedly afoot to enact a new law, with retrospective effect, to pardon all fake degree bearing parliamentarians. Is there no end to this rampage over all norms of ethical conduct? Practically everyone is terrified of the consequences that might be unleashed by invoking Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, leading perhaps to an empty Parliament. But there can be no disagreement on the principle that without a modicum of honesty and sincerity in the forums of power, the process of putting the country on the right track cannot even begin. Now that the scandal has hit the fan, stories are emerging about some responsible officials and even the head of the Parliamentary Committee on Education receiving threats from people in high positions of authority not to pursue the matter further. Such are the ways of Pakistani 'democracy'.

We have no right to be shocked or disgusted by this state of affairs since we ourselves are guilty of playing a part in producing and sustaining it. Any talk of change and reform draws a panicked response from the beneficiaries of the status quo and the dutiful drones chime in along with them for good measure. How is it possible to make a fine omelet from rotten eggs? How can Pakistan flourish in this mess without positive change to set right the wrongs? C S Lewis said it best in his book, The Abolition of Man: "In a sort of ghastly simplicity, we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and we are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the gelding be fruitful."



The writer is vice-chairman of Sindh National Front and has degrees from the University of Buckingham and Cambridge University.

Faking it