A senior clerk at the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company has been fined Ksh8.5 million by the Milimani Anti-Graft Court for using a forged KCSE certificate to secure his government job. The court ruled that he unlawfully earned over Ksh8 million during more than a decade of employment. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission welcomed the verdict as a deterrent against fake documents in public service.
On November 9, 2011, a senior clerk joined the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company Limited (NCWSC), a government-owned utility, by submitting a falsified Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) certificate. Investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) later confirmed that the document was not issued by the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC), as claimed.
The EACC launched a probe following a tip-off about the authenticity of his academic papers. After completing the investigation, the agency forwarded the file to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), which approved charges including forgery, fraudulent acquisition of public property, deceiving a principal, and uttering a false document.
Magistrate Selesa Okore at the Milimani Anti-Graft Court found him guilty of fraudulent acquisition of public property. The court determined he had unlawfully received Ksh8,243,562 in salaries and benefits from NCWSC over his more than decade-long tenure.
He was ordered to pay a fine of Ksh8,243,562, equivalent to the amount earned, or face four years in prison. Additional fines of Ksh100,000 each were imposed for deceiving a principal and presenting a false certificate, with alternatives of two years imprisonment for each. The total fine amounts to Ksh8,543,562, and all sentences will run concurrently.
The EACC praised the judgment, stating it sends a strong message against using fake documents to access public service jobs, a practice seen in various public entities. Earlier this month, a former registry clerk at the same company faced similar charges for a falsified Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Nairobi.