Make public names of all fake degree holders

KARACHI: One cannot pass through the Karachi and Lahore airports without noticing the special "parliamentarian" check-in counters. One also cannot help wondering if this country was made to honour the men and women who cheated, forged, acquired dual nationalities, never paid taxes and made false declaration of their assets. However, even in these painful and despondent times, there is a ray of hope.

A small group of committed people like Javaid Laghari and MNA Abid Sher Ali are standing by their conscience in this struggle for the soul of Pakistan. Will they succeed in fumigating our parliament to remove all its fraudulent encroachers? This depends upon the kind of support they receive from civil society, universities and the courts. The HEC should display a list of all fake-degree holding legislators on its website and update this list daily, making it available to the government, the Election Commission, the courts and the people of Pakistan.

They should initiate proceedings against universities who are delaying or falsifying records and remove them from the list of recognised/accredited universities. The commission should direct every university on its approved list to send complete information on degrees awarded, along with other scanned supporting documents to it every year.

The HEC is an autonomous body and needs no one’s permission to bring efficiency and transparency in its processes. It can choose to join the path of the fake degree holders (as recommended by the prime minister and the education minister) or carve a new place for itself as an upright institution.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2010.