The Government Roads “Engineer” with a Fake Degree in Civil Engineering

From X/@EACCKenya

Following the arrest and arraignment of Superintendent Engineer Kenneth Kamumbu Mugo, Ministry of Roads and Transport, on charges relating to forgery of academic certificates, EACC has written to the Principal Secretary seeking his suspension from office, pursuant to Section 62(1) of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act, 2003. The matter is coming up for pre-trial before Senior Principal Magistrate Peter Ouko of the Kiambu Anti-Corruption Court on 15 January 2024.

Besides the ongoing prosecution, EACC will recover all the salary and benefits that he has earned from public coffers on the basis of fake qualifications. ‘Engineer’ Mugo forged a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering, purporting it to be a genuine Certificate issued by the University of Nairobi in 2006. Using the fake degree, he secured employment as the Director of Roads and Transport at Kiambu County Government and later moved to his current senior post in the Ministry of Roads.

The Commission is investigating how the “Engineer” was absorbed into the Ministry of Roads on 11 August 2020, despite having resigned from Kiambu County Government on 21 December 2018 after EACC exposed his fake academic certificates. Using the fake degree in Civil Engineering, Mugo enrolled for a Post-Graduate Certificate in Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Audit, a Master of Science Degree in Environmental Legislation and Management, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Degree in Environmental Technology, all at JKUAT.

Following the revelation of the forgeries, JKUAT withdrew the Masters and Post-Graduate Certificates it had awarded the suspect and discontinued him from the PhD studies. EACC has identified the following six categories of academic fraud as the most prevalent in Kenya:

1. Persons altering their High School grades on their KCSE certificates to gain entry into the University.
2. Individuals personating people named on certificates (including dead persons) to either apply for admission to learning institutions or seek employment.
3. Persons who get admission to University programs but for some reason fail to complete their studies but forge degree/diploma certificates which they use to secure employment.
4. Persons who enrol for University programs complete their studies and graduate but alter their degree/diploma classification from “second-class honours lower division” to “first-class honours.”
5. Persons who have never set foot in any classroom but are fraudulently issued academic certificates by the Universities. They get all certificates and transcripts; the only thing they lack are former classmates.
6. Persons who enrol for higher courses such as Masters or Doctorate programs using forged Diploma and Degree certificates. Genuine higher qualifications but fake lower ones.

The Commission is currently investigating 153 related cases while others are pending at various stages of the criminal justice chain.