ECP mum over 24 missing degrees 61 degrees not yet sent to HEC
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is keeping a mum over the mystery of missing degrees of 24 parliamentarians as ECP claims that it has to send 37 to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) while the commission has not received degrees of sixty-one parliamentarians so far.
According to the documents available with The News, the ECP did not send degrees of 61 parliamentarians to the HEC for verification as per of July 27, 2010 while Joint Secretary Mohammad Afzal Khan who has been appointed as focal person by ECP to deal with degree’s process told the media the very same day that according to the record of the ECP, the degrees of some 37 parliamentarians had not been sent to the HEC.
The mystery of missing twenty-four degrees was also discussed in an official meeting of Afzal Khan and Advisor to HEC on Quality Assurance Dr Mehmood Raza. Afzal Khan did not want to comment on these missing degrees when contacted by The News on Tuesday. “Everything will be sort out on August 5 when we meet”, Afzal replied when asked about the contradiction of number of degrees not received by the HEC.
When asked about the figure of the parliamentarians whose degrees had not been provided to the HEC whether 61 or 37, Afzal Khan replied, “I cannot comment on this issue at present”. Afzal Khan kept on insisting form where this scribe obtained his cell number. Afzal Khan also told this correspondent that a female reporter had also filed stories against ECP and latter ECP contacted a senior journalist of The News to get the things calmed down.
Abdul Rahim Channa, Director General Attestation, Higher Education Commission when contacted said that ECP sent a few degrees today (Tuesday) out of those thirty-plus and hopefully the remaining would also be sent as soon as possible.
When asked about the figure of missing degrees, Abdul Rahim Channa said that nothing could be said as ECP was still sending the degrees of the parliamentarians and one could not count at present how many out of sixty-one had not been sent to the HEC for verification.
He said that the universities were asked to verify the degrees by August 9, which had been sent to them after being received on Tuesday, August 3. “I would want to finish the process by today if I get all the degrees”, DG attestation said when asked about the completion of verification process. It is worth mentioning here that the ECP Joint Secretary Mohammad Afzal Khan had sought record of missing 24 degrees from the HEC to trace them, as the media had reported.The news
