Islamabad - In continuation of its efforts to get the degrees of its staffers verified, the top management of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has once again asked the lingering staff to submit their degrees/certificates duly verified by the Higher Education Commission/Boards at the earliest.
The CDA has failed to verify the academic credentials of its employees as most of the officials are reluctant to submit their degrees. In none less than fifth reminder to the heads of around 100 sections of the civic agency, the Secretary CDA Board has once again requested to those whose degrees have not been received so far to submit their degrees/certificates duly verified by the HEC/ Boards at the earliest.
According to the sources, the letter distributed among the heads, including Executive Director CH, DG Services, DG Environment, DG Works, DG Water Management, DG (E&M), DG Admin, DG Civic Management, DG Design, DG Planning, DG Law and others has asked them to ensure that the remaining officers submit verified degrees at the earliest.
The issue of degree verification has been a long time debate in the civic agency, as questions continue to be raised over the presence of fake degree-holders in the CDA. There are around 18,000 employees of the authority and the incumbent management like its predecessors failed to evolve a comprehensive mechanism to undertake what looks like a gigantic task being faced by the management. The CDA administration wing had formed two committees to conduct verification of educational credentials of around 18,000 of the authority’s employees. A committee headed by the CDA HRD-II director is mandated to collect degrees from officials in grades one through 16 and daily wage employees, while the secretary CDA board will head the second committee responsible for degree verification of officers of grade 17 and above. There are currently 12,000 regular employees in grade 1 to 16, another 3,000 daily wagers and around 3000 of grade 17 and above working in the authority.
In October, 2012, the cabinet division had asked city managers to verify the credentials of their employees after news of induction of a high number of under-qualified employees emerged. It was alleged that most of those inductions in the previous government’s tenure were political appointments. On October 23, 2012, the CDA board decided that degree verification for the authority’s employees should be completed within a month but that deadline is well-past.
The sources said that still a large number of employees are yet to submit their verified degrees to the relevant office. “Over the last several years many anonymous applications have also been received to the Chairman CDA office, where applicants providing sufficient evidence challenged the degrees of even higher officials of the Authority. But as there is no system in place to check illegalities, such applications usually find their place in dustbins,” they added.