S. Sudan to prosecute holders of fake academic certificates mainly from Uganda, Kenya

JUBA – South Sudan government announced Friday that it is cracking down on fake academic documents including PhDs main brought from the neighboring Uganda and Kenya, according to information minister Michael Makuei Lueth.

Speaking to reporters following a cabinet meeting in Juba on Friday, Makuei who is also the government spokesman disclosed that the ministry of general education has been examining university certificates of government employees and referred many of them to Uganda and Kenya for authentication and the result, he said, came out that the certificates were faked.

“These documents were disqualified and the number is big. In Uganda, there were over 400 certificates, diplomas, degrees, or even PhDs and master degrees,” Makuei told reporters in Juba.

Lueth disclosed that the cabinet meeting has passed the resolution to trace down, arrest and arrange those found with the forged document before the court of law.

“All these who will be found in possession forge documents, their names should be released officially and they should be prosecuted before the court,” he said.

“Some of these people who acquired these certificates or degrees or documents through fraudulent, are the people who failed to deliver in the offices,” he said.

He added that “You find a person holding a very high degree and a very high level of document of being a Ph.D. or a master degree or a degree and if you give that person an assignment, he will not be able to deliver.”

The Cabinet directed the Ministry of General Education, of Higher Education and of Public Services to come with appropriate mechanism to control and prevent forgery of the document, he said.

“They should come up with a mechanism for identification of forged document and it seem that there are a group of people, Universities and other institutions of  learning that handle over a certificate to people  without students attending any classes,” a government spokesman said.

“If you are an honest person, you are not supposed to acquire fake document and use it for employment only and I fact, in the course of doing that, you are harming the government and you are harming your own people and the country because you will be given an assignment in which you will know performance because you have done a study and not qualified it,” he added.