'Kenyans are faking certificates to land jobs'

A government audit has revealed shocking tactics used by individuals to forge academic and professional certificates in a bid to secure jobs, promotions, and re-designations within the public service.

An ongoing verification exercise by the Public Service Commission (PSC) shows that fraudsters have employed a range of deceitful tactics, from altering grades and forging documents to fabricating entire qualifications.

In the exercise, 91 public institutions submitted over 53,000 academic certificates to the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) for authentication. Out of these, 1,280 were found to be fake.

The report indicates that some applicants tampered with their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) mean grades to meet job requirements.

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Others presented entirely fake KCSE certificates, despite never having sat the national exam.

In extreme cases, individuals claimed academic credentials from institutions that later confirmed the applicants had never been enrolled.

Some officers even upgraded their degree classifications, converting a “pass” into a “first-class honours,” while others invented fake Master’s and PhD qualifications.

These revelations emerged on Wednesday during the Ethics and Integrity Conference held in Nairobi, amid growing concerns over lax enforcement.

PSC chairperson Antony Muchiri expressed frustration over the courts’ tendency to acquit individuals found to have used fake certificates to earn salaries from public coffers.

“What I don’t understand is how you can get acquitted with a fake certificate after earning public money. It is unacceptable,” said Muchiri.

His sentiments come on the heels of a February 2024 report by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), which revealed that several high-profile individuals had managed to evade legal consequences in cases involving forged academic documents while other cases remain stalled in court.

By February last year, EACC was investigating 161 reports of forged academic papers by State officials.

Of these, six cases have resulted in convictions, 20 are pending in court, and investigations have been concluded in another eight.

The commission also disclosed that it had recovered Sh12.8 million in salaries earned through falsified academic credentials.

Addressing the conference, Head of Public Service Felix Koskei decried that some institutions have failed to forward names of those found with fake certificates to the investigating bodies for action.

“Only 49 institutions are said to have forwarded the names of implicated officers to the anti-corruption commission and the public service commission. Alarmingly, four institutions submitted a list of implicated officers that did not match the number of confirmed cases flagged in the organisations,” Koskei said.

Further Koskei decried the lack of a digitized verification system, which has hindered efforts to authenticate certificates quickly and accurately.