Public Service Commission (PSC) Chairperson Amb. Anthony Muchiri has said over 2,000 public officers secured jobs, promotions and re-designations using fake academic papers.
Speaking on Tuesday, Muchiri said this was discovered after PSC undertook an authentication exercise on the academic credentials of public officers.
The PSC boss insisted that the Commission is handing over the findings of the academic and professional certificates report to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for necessary legal action against the officers affected.
“According to the reports received by the Commission, there are substantial cases of forged academic and professional certificates used for the award of appointments, promotions or re-designation in the public service,” Muchiri said.
Muchiri made the remarks during a briefing on the Status of Authentication of Academic and Professional Certificates in the Public Service on Tuesday.
Present at the briefing were EACC chairperson Dr David Oginde and CEO Twalib Mbarak, as well as the Director of Criminal Investigations Mohamed Amin.
According to PSC, at least 331 institutions were targeted in the probe, of which 52 were ministries, State Departments and Agencies.
Another 239 included all State Corporations and Semi-Autonomous Government Agencies and 40 were all Public Universities.
Amb. Muchiri noted that only 195 institutions have complied with all that was asked out of 331 institutions.
The Commission further noted that the number of officers found with forged certificates across various institutions is as follows:
"Out of the 53,599 cases referred to Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) by 91 public institutions for authentication, 1,280 were verified as forged. However, I hasten to add that this number is not final as the authentication exercise is still ongoing and we expect to receive more cases of forgeries;
"195 MDAs - including Universities and other tertiary institutions - have so far finalized authenticating certificates for 29,314. From this number, 787 officers have been verified to have used forged certificates to procure appointment, promotion or re-designation in the public service."
