Kajiado West Member of Parliament George Sunkuyia (UDA) was Tuesday arrested by Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) detectives for forgery of a certificate.
He is accused of forging his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) certificate.
The MP was picked up from his Nairobi home and taken to Integrity Centre pending arraignment.
This is the latest such arrest to be made in connection with forged documents.
Officials say Kenya is dealing with an alarming increase in academic and professional certificate forgeries in the public sector, resulting in urgent calls for systemic reform and increased vigilance.
This disturbing trend was revealed at the 2025 Ethics and Integrity Conference in Nairobi, where top government and anti-corruption officials warned of the far-reaching consequences if the problem is not addressed quickly.
Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service 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,” Koskei said.
“We must confront it decisively to safeguard our national objectives.”
EACC said since 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.
EACC said it is also pursuing recovery of 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,” Koskei said.
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 public and private.
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