{UAH} Tanzania: Holders of Fake Certificates Must Be Stopped, Exposed

Tanzania: Holders of Fake Certificates Must Be Stopped, Exposed

2 OCTOBER 2013

POSSESSION of fake certificates is increasingly becoming a global trend. From Europe to America; Africa to Asia; Middle East to Australia, forged certificates are on high demand making printing and selling of the documents a lucrative business.

Such documents are used for admissions in schools, colleges and universities as well as for securing employment. Some dealers in fake certificates possess sophisticated computer systems that enable them to forge documents matching the original.

This is an academic corruption and one of the most heinous acts of the moral deviation that must be addressed comprehensively. On Monday, the Public Service Recruitment Secretariat (PSRS) said in the last three years more than 800 fake certificates were used by job seekers who applied for work in the public sector through the secretariat.

They were out of 13,544 applicants. The Secretariat revealed that most of the forged certificates were from Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA) institutes. For example, it said, in June, this year, more than half of the applicants from VETA had presented forged certificates.

This is a very serious scenario which calls for urgent measures. It leads to recruitment of unqualified or poorly qualified workers and managers which may result in poorer economic performance.

Forgery is immoral and shows how dishonest the person is. If one cannot be trustworthy at such an initial stage of recruitment, what happens when one gets the job? One crucial thing that many people tend to overlook is the fact that one can easily forge a certificate but one cannot fake knowledge... and that's where many fraudsters who make it through the recruitment process, are caught.

Various countries have devised different mechanisms and adopted several measures to address the problem. Some of the measures include imposition of stiff penalties to both holders and manufacturers of fake certificates. Relevant authorities must therefore devise rigorous measures to combat the crime.

They must include public campaigns to raise awareness on the consequences of certificate forgery in the social, security, educational and economic spheres. It should be understood that holders of fake certificates are out in the employment market, posing a serious threat to the holders of original documents.

Therefore, the secretariat's move must be emulated by all recruitment authorities in both public and private sector. Unless the rots of the fake certificates are cleared, we will not be surprised to see criminals get into sensitive institutions.

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower