Kenya: The Scourge of Dubious Academic Certificates

13 FEBRUARY 2021

The Nation (Nairobi)

By Walter Menya

Imagine going to a hospital and being treated by a doctor whom you later learn lacks the qualifications but forged his academic papers to get the job.

Or taking your first flight only to hear that the person you entrusted with your life got into the cockpit courtesy of falsified certificates. Or the HR manager asking you tough questions in a job interview shouldn't be there in the first place for lack of qualifications.

This is no longer an issue of imagination but the reality in the recent days as the country records a sharp increase in cases of fake academic papers among job holders and seekers.

Just this week, during the KDF recruitment, dozens of hopefuls were turned away for presenting fake academic documents.

Dr Juma Mukwana, the Director-General of the Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA), says it is an issue the country has ignored 'although everybody knows that it exists'.

"What we have lacked as a country is some kind of a national framework for addressing the issue although the law is very clear that if you utter a false document then you are liable for criminal prosecution," said Dr Mukwana.

Mr Ahmad Nassir Dirie Olow, who has for eight years been a pilot, was arrested and charged towards the end of January for falsifying a KCSE certificate to show that he had obtained grade B+. He managed to secure a spot at the aviation school on the strength of the falsified form four certificate.

Last week, an anaesthetist at Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital (KTRH) went into hiding after he was suspected of having been using a fraudulent practising licence.

Meanwhile, Ms Irene Chesang, who has been a human resources manager at the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation (Rerec), was presented in court last week on charges of forging a university degree certificate to secure the job nine years ago. The Saturday Nation has learnt that the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has now set up camp at the Rerec offices, where they suspect there could be a lot more similar cases.

The commission told the Saturday Nation that they have 73 ongoing investigations of suspected cases of falsification of academic documents while 14 cases are pending in court, "where suspects have been charged with providing false information to the commission under Section 46 of the Leadership and Integrity Act, fraudulently obtaining public property under Anti-Corruption and Economic crimes Act, forgery, uttering false documents among others.

"The falsification is in relation to KCSE certificates, undergraduate degrees and master's certificates and certificates issued by professional bodies and tertiary colleges," the commission said.

Among the ongoing cases is that of Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, who was charged with forgery of academic papers. Mr Sudi was in court on Wednesday for the mention of his cases.

Meanwhile, a number of prominent names are still pending under investigations. These include Taita Taveta Governor Granton Samboja, former Nairobi governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko, several MPs and members of county assemblies.

"The commission received two convictions in November 2019 on falsification of academic papers. Among them is John Chacha Nyamohanga alias Mwita Moses Mogaya, who was a police officer attached to the office of the Governor of Migori," the EACC said.

Other big names who have been accused of forging or falsifying academic papers include the director-general of the Private Security Regulatory Authority Fazul Mahamed.

The Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ, Ombudsman) in 2016 found that as the executive director of the NGOs Coordination Board back then, Mr Mahamed "was hired on the basis of the false degree certificate purported to have been acquired from Egerton University."

In a separate investigation, EACC confirmed JAC's findings but decided not to prosecute him, stating that the forged documents could not be traced from his personnel file at the board. "It was suspected that it may have been removed from his personal file and concealed. In the absence of the certificate, a prosecution against him could not be sustained," EACC said.

Mr Mahamed went on to become the first director-general of the Private Security Regulatory Authority.

According to Mr Suba Churchill, presiding convener of the Civil Society Reference Group, and who was pursuing the matter of Mr Mahamed, the way some cases are handled embolden those who fraudulently acquire fake academic certificates. "The efforts we see with the DCI, EACC and KNQA do not mean much because we know for a fact that there are governors and MPs who are serving with those certificates yet there is no effort to speedily conclude those cases. I remain pessimistic, as I have been, that there seems to be no sufficient political will to hold to account those who present fake academic papers," said Mr Churchill.

KNQA has revealed that one-third of all the certificates they verify are falsified, outright fake or fraudulent.

"Every day we are handling between 30 and 50 certificates of people that have applied for different services. This data is based on what we see every day from the certificates that are brought to us for recognition or verification," he said.

Mr Phillipe Lamote, founder of BrainChain Mission, a global certification verification, told the Saturday Nation that the biggest hindrance to the fight against fake or falsified certificates is that national authorities think they can tackle the problem on their own.

"The biggest problem, however, is all these well-meaning (initiatives) are island solutions - like KNQA will be. Such fraud is a global one, and can, therefore, only be hunted with a global solution," he said.

Echoing Mr Churchill, Mr Lamote added that unlike fake banknotes, gold, car theft, no one goes after diploma fraud.

"It is an orphaned type of fraud. The cost to fraud is almost nil; suffices to buy a printer and any university logo can be downloaded from the internet to print whatever. Hardly any employer vets potential hires these days. That seems to be a thing of the past, at least in the EU and US. In Africa, by lack of platforms it must be the same," he said.

For Dr Mukhwana, the problem the country is experiencing with the proliferation of fake academic and professional certificates has roots in weak and scattered laws, and a lack of national framework for verification of certificates.

Under the current system, he said, if you want to verify, say, a Moi University qualification, one has to write to the university and wait for their response. Even then the university is under no obligation to provide the information that is requested. "Currently, if a university verifies a certificate for you then they will be doing it out of goodwill. There is no requirement. And the way universities are managed is that there are layers upon layers of managers and there is no one person in that hierarchy who is designated to do that kind of work. That kind of system has created the inability to deal with the fake or fraudulent or falsified certificates menace," he said.

The KNQA boss, however, says the far-reaching changes spelled out in Section 8(e) of the Kenya National Qualifications Framework Act which empowers the authority to "maintain a national database of national qualifications" is soon becoming a reality with the expected launch of the National Qualifications Information Management System (NQIMS).

NQIMS will be a backend platform for universities, tertiary institutions and examination bodies to upload data annually on all the people that they graduate.

"It is now a requirement that the institutions awarding academic qualifications submit their data to us and we use that to build a national database so that we have a one-stop shop for ease of verification," said Dr Mukhwana.

On the front end, there is the Kenya National Learners Record Database, a one-stop digital platform for verifying qualifications.