KARACHI: The Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly was informed on Tuesday that 27 Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) employees had been dismissed from service after their educational documents were found to be fake.

The PAC meeting chaired by Nisar Ahmed Khuhro was also informed that the verification of degrees of 3,400 employees out of a total of 5,350 was still pending with the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

The PAC chairman directed the DUHS administration to recover the entire amount of salaries paid to the 27 employees whose degrees had been found to be fake.

The meeting, attended by committee members Qasim Siraj Soomro and Makhdoom Fakhar Zaman, Dow University Vice-Chancellor Nazli Hussain and other officials, reviewed audit paras of the university for 2024 and 2025.

Official says verification of academic credentials of 3,400 employees still pending

The paras pointed out that the university administration had failed to get the degrees of recruited employees verified during the audit and had not responded to queries on the matter.

The university’s finance director informed the committee that the process of degree verification through the HEC had been outsourced to a company at a cost of Rs7.36 million.

He said that out of 5,350 total employees of Dow University, degrees of around 1,945 employees had been verified, of which 27 had been found to be fake, and added that 3,400 employees’ degrees were still under verification.

The VC informed the committee that over 70 per cent of academic doctors’ degrees had been verified, while the remaining 25pc were under process.

The PAC chairman directed that the entire amount of salaries be recovered from the 27 employees who had been recruited on the basis of fake degrees and sought a report from all public universities regarding verification of degrees of academic staff and employees.

The committee also inquired about Dow University’s annual budget and revenue generation.

The finance director informed the meeting that the university had an annual budget of Rs26 billion, while it generates Rs25bn annually from academic services, radiology, laboratory and other sources, including Rs4.5bn from student fees.

The VC said that the university had more than 300 open-merit seats. Self-finance students were charged Rs500,000 per annum and open merit students Rs60,000 per annum, while international students were charged between $10,000 and $18,000 per annum as fixed by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council.

Meanwhile, the meeting also discussed the condition of Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi, over which the PAC chairman expressed dissatisfaction.

He observed that the provincial government provided billions of rupees annually for free treatment, yet Civil Hospital Karachi remained in poor condition.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2026