Khuhro says MPs having fake degrees should be dealt with severely
Friday, July 16, 2010
HYDERABAD: ‘Thorny’ is the most suitable epithet to describe the journey of democracy in Pakistan with a single denotation which connotes that the journey was confronted with incessant conspiracies aimed at rejecting the people’s right to rule themselves through their elected representatives.
These views were expressed by Speaker Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro at a dialogue titled ‘Journey of Democracy’ organised here on Thursday at the Sindhi Language Authority.
The Speaker Sindh Assembly said it was time that people should stop debating about functioning of democratic or non-democratic systems of governance in the country and only focus their attention towards bolstering democracy and contributing whatever they could for institutionalisation of the same.
He maintained that bureaucracy had always erected obstacles on the path of strengthening of democracy and time and again concerted campaigns were launched to malign democratic leadership as to discredit democracy so that a way for rule of public servants could be paved for their own vested interests.
Talking about the ongoing fake degrees issue, Khuhro said not only those parliamentarians who were being disqualified for the reason of submitting fabricated degrees should be dealt with severely but also those institutions which granted them fake degrees and the election commission which failed to verify the same should be brought to the book.
Professor Qalandar Shah Lakiari while defining civil servants as being ‘neither civil nor servants’ said it was a paradox that a class which had ruled over India and subsequently over Pakistan after its creation and was called as ‘Hukaam or Aala Hukaam’ by the local people continues to call itself servants of the public.
“Pakistani civil servants, sadly, adopted the same proclivity from their predecessors who were the tools of British Samraaj to exact unqualified obedience from the masses,” he said.
Professor Lakiari said Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the only leader who took practical steps to discipline the bureaucracy so that they no longer remain nominal public servants but, indeed, also behave as so.
“There is a renewed need to restructure the social fabric by instituting a new social contract which is based on the universal values,” he admonished while referring to broaching of the same notion by Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. He advised media that it should realise that without a working democracy their institution would itself become a victim of dictatorial suppression of freedom of expression.
