KARACHI: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday directed all public universities in the province to have the educational degrees of their employees and officials verified by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) within three months.

The directive was issued after it was revealed in the PAC that 10 employees of the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) had been hired with fake degrees.

While examining the audit papers of the DUHS from 2021 to 2023, the PAC learnt that the certificates of only 450 out of 3,500 employees had so far been verified by the HEC.

According to the audit reports of the university, while reviewing the personal files of contractual employees, it was noticed that their degrees and other character antecedents had not been verified by the relevant boards, universities or concerned agencies at the time of appointment.

The audit department, in its report, was of the view that in the absence of verification of educational documents, the appointment of contractual employees was irregular and the chances of bogus degrees and certificates could not be ruled out.

It was also stated that a sum of Rs2.33 billion is spent annually on employees’ salaries.

The PAC was informed that the audit department had reported the matter to the DUHS in June last year, but no reply had been received so far.

The DUHS management told the PAC that the university had invited tenders for degree verification thrice in the past, but no bidder had participated in the process.

Consequently, the management engaged HRSG Outsourcing Company directly for the verification of degrees, and the firm has begun work and some degrees have already been verified.

DUHS Vice Chancellor (VC) Dr Nazli Hussain informed the PAC that eight out of the 10 employees whose degrees were found to be fake had been removed from service, while the remaining two had been served show-cause notices and would be terminated shortly.

She added that from July 2021 to June 2025, a total of 3,023 employees had been appointed on a contract basis, and of them, the services of 54 had been regularised.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2025