Daily Times

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has been decrying for cuts in its fiscal year 2022-23 budget by the federal government and demanded “an additional grant” after allocation of Rs 66 billion as recurring grant for the higher education sector while on the other hand it has spent thousands of rupees to its selected employees as “bonus”.

Sparingly, the amount was paid from the Higher Education Development in Pakistan (HEDP) project that was purely funded by Word Bank with an aim to support research excellence in strategic sectors of economy, improve teaching and learning and strengthen governance in the higher education sector of the country.

As per document available with Daily Times, the Executive Director (ED) Dr Shaista Sohail approved honorarium of over Rs five million for 31 selected employees.

Interestingly, Dr Sohail was working as ED on a provisional basis as her service tenure was being revived many times by the board that is actually appointing authority for this post. As per HEC Act, the ED is the Principal Accounting Officer. Some of the employees, included in the list of 31, have exceeded even amounts of Rs three hundered thousands. Such extraordinary performers, according to the HEC, are Awais Ahmed, Nazeer Hussain and Amjad Husain who have been awarded Rs 399,915 under cheque number 8570775, Rs 336,987 under cheque number 8570772 and Rs 314,940 under cheque number 8570763 respectively.

Besides this, significant numbers are part of these 31 staffers who even cashed out Rs two hundred thousands little lesser or greater.

When asked why such amounts were dispersed to only selected employees, the HEC denied the facts and defended the releasing amount. “It is compensation for limited employees, who actually put in extraordinary efforts to achieve the specified targets of the project.” Despite asking, the commission didn’t share some of those “extraordinary efforts” details.

It claimed that “a total of 31 employees contributing to HEDP as additional duties were given a one time compensation for their services over 2.5 years life of the project,” adding that HEC employees who worked beyond the call of duty for accomplishment of project targets/DLIs (disbursement linked indicators) to ensure that the budgetary support to the government of Pakistan to continue as planned under the project.

Interestingly, it had hired complete staff to deal with this project. The sources said that the authorities just paid amounts to oblige their “blue-eyed” that is highly discrimination as well as against the fundamental purposes of the project.

The HEDP awas a five-year project (2019/20-2023/24) being implemented by HEC across the country. It aims to support research excellence in strategic sectors of the economy, improve teaching and learning and strengthen governance in the higher education sector of the country. Partially funded by the Word Bank, the project will directly support HEC key interventions aimed at improving the quality and relevance of second and third tier higher education institutions while encouraging research and innovation in tier one universities of Pakistan.

Earlier in this month, the federal government unveiled the federal budget worth more than Rs 9,000 billion for the fiscal year 2022-23 out of which Rs 44.17 billion has been allocated for the development budget of the HEC for various projects.

According to the budget documents, the government allocated Rs 5 billion for 13 new projects of different kinds in the budget while over Rs. 38.72 billion has been allocated for the 131 projects already underway. Well informed sources disclosed this scribe that the HEC authorities, however, are not satisfied from the budgetary allocation and have been using Vice Chancellors to decry over this. He said, on the other hand, the authorities are obliging their favorites instead of following an austerity approach.