30% of all academic certificates in Kenya are either fake, falsified or somehow tempered with, Dr Juma Mukhwana, the Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) director-general says.
Mukhwana said while appearing before the parliamentary committee for vetting, he, however, added that efforts to address the vice have been blocked by the court.
“Our survey revealed that 30% of academic papers are falsified fake or somehow tampered with,” he told the trade committee chaired by James Gakuya.
Kenya National Qualifications Authority had linked its system with the Immigration department, the directorate of criminal investigations, The Ethics and anti-corruption commission, and the independent and boundaries commission ahead of the August general elections but someone moved to court to block it.
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The PS nominee told lawmakers that he was determined to weed out fake academic papers but the court tied its hands.
He said that KNQA has a policy where its employees must have their documents authenticated before securing a job.
“All my employees have their academic documents checked to authenticate if they are genuine. I think once the court action ends, we need to implement this system. This is because we have no central repository of all our qualifications where one can check a query easily.” he said
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One person in every three Kenyans holds a fake certificate.
The authority has unveiled an anonymous site called report cheti mwitu which is aimed at weeding out fake documents.
Some of the politicians in the August 2022 general elections had problems with their academic certificates which raised so many questions in the country.
