Certified corruption
An audit in the public service has revealed that high-ranking government officials in Kenya are among persons who used forged academic papers to secure employment and promotions. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) is investigating hundreds of cases of falsification of academic documents by state officers.
Those under investigation are senior politicians, general managers of some government agencies, and staff at the counties. The scope of the probe by the EACC involves those who forged their degree, diplomas, and form four certificates either entirely or through alterations. Some individuals went to the extent of forging certificates in courses that the awarding institutions don’t offer.
The process to root out those with fake academic papers started in 2022 when the Public Service Commission (PSC) directed state agencies to authenticate the education papers of their employees. A year later, in 2023, PSC and Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) disclosed that out of the 53,000 civil servants who submitted their documents for verification over 2,000 had fake papers.
"We will now confront the monster of corruption head-on going forward, whether it is in counties, whether it is in the national government. Just imagine, a simple audit of people working for the government has revealed that we have 2,100 people with fake (academic) certificates working for the government," President William Ruto said, speaking during the Wage Bill Conference.
A recent article by Dr. Omai, PhD, an anti-corruption and governance consultant, states that fake certification is a dark business enterprise growing in a multi-billion shilling industry. But it is bad news for the integrity and efficiency of our output in the work environment.
Once again, we find ourselves grappling with an issue that requires culture change at a national level. The risks of having incompetent people in office, public or private, while genuine graduates get stuck without jobs could cost the country heavily in the long run. -AG, BM