Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Due to a lack of interest or the lessened fear of accountability, the civic authority’s management has once again failed to collect HEC attested documents of its employees as only six officers submitted their documents last month.

After failing in the previous drive last year to get the attestation of employees’ degrees from the HEC, the CDA gave a deadline of 30 days to its employees for attestation of their degrees on individual basis and asked them to submit a photocopy along with the original documents before the degree verification committee.

The deadline to submit the documents expired last week, but only few employees have submitted their HEC’s attested documents before the committee, which shows the careless and fearless behaviour of the CDA employees. Commenting on the situation, the member of the degree verification committee Asif Shah Jahan said; “We had served a notice to submit the attested degrees before the committee and gave a time period of one month, but unfortunately only few documents have been received so far.”

He said further; “We have also issued another letter in this regard containing warning of disciplinary action against those who will not provide their documents within 15 days.”

Asif Shah Jahan briefed; “We have already sought the attestation of employees’ degrees from their respective boards of intermediate and secondary education, but we are unable to get the attestation of degrees from the HEC.”

Earlier, it was reported by Daily Times that the whole practice of of the CDA management to collect the degrees of its employees was useless because the HEC had refused the civic authority to collectively attest degrees as per its policy. Initially, the civic authority management had constituted a three-member committee comprising Director General Administration, Director General HRD and the Secretary CDA Board to collaborate with the HEC to devise a workable and comprehensive strategy to ensure the transparent and prompt degree verification process last year.

Besides devising a workable plan, the said committee had initiated the process of degree verification without preparing a strategy or even without a communication with the relevant departments to get a knowhow of the rules and practices. The employees of the Authority were asked by the said committee to submit their academic credentials for attestation. The employees showed reluctance in the beginning and did not submit their documents for months after the first notice was served by the committee in this regard. The degree verification committee issued a number of notices to its employees for the submission of documents one after the another.

Besides internal hampering and pressure, the repeated notices, warnings and salary freezing resulted in a response by the employees of the Authority, who in the end were forced to submit their documents with the Authority, but it happened after more than a year.

When the CDA contacted the HEC to attest the degrees then it refused to attest the degrees of the civic authority’s employees in bulk as it is not the policy of the HEC. It asked the Authority’s management to seek the attestation of its employees degrees on an individual basis. The management of the CDA initiated the process once again, but the results were not much different from last year as only a few degrees were received so far and apparently it looks like the practice will consume one more year. Such careless behaviour by the employees and the mismanagement by the CDA administration is a question mark on the working environment of the civic authority and needs a personal involvement of the chairman CDA.