Imran lashes out at government for replacing HEC director

PTI chief alleges the government has gone for a full assault on the HEC, eyeing its resources for further corruption.

LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan condemned the government’s decision to replace the higher education commission's (HEC) executive director on Friday, saying that the incumbent regime was targeting institution HEC as part of an ongoing policy to destroy all viable state institutions of the country.

“It seems that all viable state institutions are being destroyed one by one under a plan. While the HEC, the only institution helping the youth, was not functioning as well as it could, it was still delivering in the field of higher education and the government should be supporting it by enabling it to improve it’s functioning,” Imran Khan said in a statement issued here from the party’s media office on Friday.

Unfortunately, Imran said, the government has been impeding the HEC’s work since it came into power. “Now it has gone for a full assault on the HEC, eyeing its resources for further corruption,” the PTI chief alleged.

Imran pointed out that the government had contravened the SC order of April 2011, specifically asking the government not to violate HEC Ordinance 2002 by getting the Establishment Division to appoint a bureaucrat as the Executive Director of the HEC. However, the HEC Ordinance dictates that only the Commission can legally take that decision. The PTI chief lamented that the worst part of the move was that a retired Major, now a Grade 22 Bureaucrat, had been given this appointment replacing a qualified technocrat.

The PTI chief, who has campaigned against corruption as part of his election slogan said the HEC’s performance has been devoid of major corruption and scandal which has allowed it to gain financial support from international institutions such as the World Bank – who otherwise have been reluctant to fund projects in Pakistan.

“In the corrupt tradition of this present set of rulers, no viable institution is being left standing to carry out its functions in an efficient and transparent manner. Instead, all state institutions are being targeted and willfully destroyed, especially those with substantial budgets. Government corporations have been pillaged, bankrupted and politicised. Now education, which is already at the bottom of this government’s priorities, will suffer yet another major setback with this wanton destruction of the HEC,” alleged Imran.