A former principal human resource officer at the County Assembly of Kiambu, Margaret Njeri Mbugua, has been convicted at the Milimani Anti-Corruption Court in Nairobi over a forged secondary school certificate used to obtain public employment, Kenyan media reported on 23 October.

Magistrate Isabellah Barasa delivered judgment on 22 October after Mbugua pleaded guilty under a plea agreement with the Director of Public Prosecutions. She was convicted on three counts: fraudulent acquisition of public property, uttering a false document and presenting a forged certificate.

The sentence

The court imposed a fine of Ksh20,000 on each count, with six months' imprisonment per count in default, and ordered Ksh1 million in compensation to the government. Citizen Digital reported that the compensation is payable in quarterly instalments running to 2029, bringing the total to about Ksh1.06 million.

According to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the certificate purported to show that she sat the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination at Gachoire Secondary School in 1996. It was presented at St Paul's University in Kiambu County in December 2011. She received about Ksh4.92 million in salary from the County Assembly between November 2020 and August 2025.

The prosecution had lined up seven witnesses, including experts. The EACC said the conviction should serve as a deterrent to people who use forged academic documents to secure public jobs.

Part of a wider pattern

The case is one of several recent EACC prosecutions in Kenya involving forged KCSE certificates used to obtain public-sector jobs, as authorities scrutinise payrolls and staff qualifications. Under the plea agreement, the separate forgery count did not proceed to conviction.

Verification point

Employers can avoid similar losses by confirming school-leaving results directly with the national examination body at the time of hiring and before promotions, instead of relying on the paper certificate supplied by the candidate.

Sources

This News Desk report summarises information published by the sources above, written in our own words. Persons named in criminal matters are accused, not convicted, unless a court has ruled otherwise. To report an error, use our contact page.

KenyaEACCKCSEforged certificatepublic sector

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