PIA finds degrees of 350 employees fake

KARACHI: Degrees of as many as 350 employees of the national flag carrier have been found ‘fake’. The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) have terminated services of around 300 employees with immediate effect while remaining 50 cases are subjudice and courts’ decisions are waited for further action.

Such measures were adopted in compliance with instructions of Supreme Court of Pakistan. The PIA has been vigorously pursuing the issue of credential verifications of its employees, the General Manager Public Affairs PIA Muhammad Mashhood Tajwar said on Friday.

The Human Resource Administration Department of the PIA has been performing this gigantic task of verification of credentials of around 16,000 employees. The PIA launch the process of degrees verification some six months ago (since October, 2013), he mentioned.

“So far more than 30,000 degrees have been dispatched to concerned educational institutions (universities and boards) for the verifications. Meanwhile, dispatch process of remaining 3,000 degrees will be completed by mid of April. Up till now verification of now more than 6,000 degrees have been received and out of which 350 degrees were found fake”.

The verification process is going on in a very transparent manner across the board encompassing all categories and groups of employees without any discrimination. As per instructions of Supreme Court’s instructions a prompt action was taken against the fake degree holders according to Corporation’s Rules and Regulations, he claimed.

The PIA has expedited the task of verification, however, appropriate action can only be initiated once the replies from concerned universities or examination board’s is received, he concluded.