Abu Dhabi: "Even if thousands of criminals escape, one innocent should not be punished."
This is the simple argument of a man who is challenging the credibility of the degree verification programme launched last year by the Labour Ministry.
Zulphee Esmail, a 41-year-old civil engineer, had his degree reported as fake with IntegraScreen, the company responsible for verification, receiving a confirmation from his university of the same.
Though Esmail praises the verification system as an effective means to detect fake certificates, he wishes a number of loopholes will be rectified.
"The system should not take for granted statements from universities, because this means errors will not be discovered and corrupt officials in some institutions will get away with their crimes," he told Gulf News.
In his case, he added, his university issued two conflicting statements to two different bodies - It testified to the Indian embassy in Abu Dhabi two years before that the degree is genuine and to the verification company that the same degree is fake. How come this can be accepted?
He stressed the verification company, the Labour Ministry and other authorities should ensure that innocent people are not harassed due to this procedure.
Paul Kane, Middle East Business Development Manager at the company responsible for attestation, agreed his company "has to depend on statements from universities, giving degree holders the right to dispute the verification findings by submitting a new application at a further cost of Dh500, enabling the Labour Ministry to re-validate the educational qualifications."
He added his company is investigating the case, which he termed as the first ever to happen in the company. "We are confirming with the university concerned."
But Esmail's problem does not end here. For one month now, he has been going from pillar to post to submit a new application to re-confirm his degree. His efforts failed because the system has no facility to accept this measure.
"The system does not allow for submitting a new application for disputing the verification findings, despite the fact that both IntegraScreen and the Labour Ministry agreed to my right to the measure," Esmail said.
Ahmad Kajoor, assistant undersecretary of the Labour Ministry, admitted the system has no facility to accept an application for challenging the verification result. "But the ministry is working to sort out the problem soon."
Esmail also complained that IntegraScreen "just post the results online without considering consequences in the case the result was wrong."
He suggested that in the case of negative results, there should be a meeting with the person concerned to further check the degree before the result is published or passed on to the Labour Ministry or the Residency Department.
