ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided to launch an inquiry against the alleged illegal appointment of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, who is about to complete his tenure.
The appointment of Mukhtar Ahmed as HEC chairman opened a floodgate of criticism because the criterion adopted to appoint him to the post was dubious. His appointment had also been challenged in various courts of Pakistan.
Eventually, in a meeting chaired by NAB Chairman Justice (r) Javed Iqbal on Monday, it was decided to carry out complaint verification against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and officers of the Establishment Division in the case of alleged illegal appointment of Mukhtar Ahmed.
Higher Education Working Group on Higher Education Reforms welcomed NAB’s decision to investigate alleged illegal appointment of HEC chairman. The working group said that such inquiries would be greatly helpful in discouraging illegal and non-transparent appointments of heads of institutions in the higher education sector.
The spokesperson of the working group said that many stakeholders had raised serious concerns over the appointment of HEC chairman by ignoring merit. In this regard, a detailed report was also prepared, he added.
The spokesperson said that the working group believed that the effective functioning of the higher education sector was directly linked to the appointment of capable senior academicians through a transparent selection process. He also demanded the prime minister, who exercises control on the commission’s matters, to ask the current HEC chairman not to perform his official duties till the conclusion of the NAB inquiry.
Dr Mukhtar Ahmed was appointed as head of HEC in 2014, which was among some of the few prestigious posts in Pakistan. It is pertinent to mention here that HEC was the only higher education regulatory body with more than Rs 90 billion budget, besides having complete control of monitoring affairs of around 180 public sector universities.
