Dow University orders salary recovery from 27 employees over fake degrees

KARACHI: The academic degrees of 27 employees at Dow University of Health Sciences have been found to be fake, prompting the Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to order the recovery of all salaries paid to them.

The development came during a PAC meeting chaired by Nisar Khuhro, where audit paras concerning Dow University for 2024 and 2025 were reviewed.

The meeting was attended by committee members, including Qasim Soomro and Makhdoom Fakhr-uz-Zaman, along with Dow University Vice Chancellor Nazli Hussain and other relevant officials.

According to a PAC statement, fake degrees were identified among 27 university employees. The committee was also informed that the university administration had yet to get the academic credentials of 3,400 out of its total 5,350 employees verified by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

The PAC directed the university to recover all salaries paid to the 27 employees whose degrees were proven fake. It also sought reports from all public universities regarding the verification of academic credentials of their faculty and staff.

During the meeting, Dow University’s finance director said the university had outsourced the degree verification process to HRSG under a contract worth Rs7.36 million.

He said degrees of 1,945 employees had been verified out of the university’s total workforce of 5,350, with 27 found to hold fake academic qualifications.

The finance director further confirmed that all 27 employees with fake degrees had been dismissed from their jobs.