Detectives from the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission on Tuesday morning swooped upon Kajiado West Member of Parliament George Sunkuyia for allegedly forging a Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) certificate.
The unsuspecting politician was whisked off to Integrity Center from his posh residence in one of the leafy estates of Nairobi.
EACC Detectives clarified that the arrest was part of ongoing investigations to weed out public officers occupying privileged positions with forged academic credentials.
During the Ethics and Integrity Conference in Nairobi early this year, top government and anti-corruption officials revealed an expansive web of forgery of academic and professional certificates in the public sector, resulting in underperformance and fraudulently exorbitant payments of salaries and emoluments.
The Head of the Public Service Mr. Felix Koskei warned that certificate forgery is a serious breach that jeopardizes Kenya’s institutions’ core values of integrity, competence, and meritocracy.
“This vice strikes at the heart of competence and integrity in our institutions. We must confront it decisively to safeguard our national objectives.”
Soon thereafter the EACC went on a crackdown.
According to EACC records beginning from 2022, the commission has investigated 549 cases of forged academic and professional credentials.
Of these, 85 files have been forwarded for prosecution, resulting in 13 convictions and 7 acquittals.
The Commission is in the process of recovering salaries and benefits obtained fraudulently by individuals who gained employment using fake documents.
A verification exercise conducted across 91 public institutions has so far unearthed 1,208 forged certificates from a sample of 53,000 cases submitted to the Kenya National Resources Region Council.
The investigation continues, but early findings show the most egregious fraud is concentrated in state corporations and senior government agencies, which account for approximately 70% of the reported forgeries, followed by public universities with 116 cases.
Koskei further revealed that 787 officers in tertiary institutions were found to have used fake documents to secure appointments, promotions, or resignations.
The forgery spans all levels of education, from secondary schools and TVETs to both local and international universities.
The 2023–2024 National Values Report said among 358 institutions that conducted certification audits for 168,000 officers, 859 individuals were confirmed to hold fake academic certificates, while 160 others possessed fraudulent professional credentials. Alarmingly, 24,000 officers had not been certified at all.
“It is unacceptable that graduates with genuine first-class degrees struggle to find work while fraudsters thrive,” said Koskei
Only 49 institutions have reported such cases to the EACC or Public Service Commission, with only 43 providing supporting evidence.
Authorities are now pushing for greater accountability from employers, both in public and private sectors.
George Sunkuyia is a member of the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Party and his arrest is a pointer to how serious the EACC is in its war to clamp down on fake academic credentials.
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