Cairo: A Kuwaiti citizen has been sentenced to four years in prison for illegally receiving government salaries by using a forged Saudi high school certificate as part of the documents for obtaining his job.
The Kuwaiti Criminal Court also ordered the defendant to be expelled from the job and pay a fine of KD105,000 ($340,000), reported the Kuwaiti news portal Almajilis.
The falsity of the education degree was confirmed after verification with Saudi authorities, the report added.
The court stated that the jail sentence could be suspended if the defendant pays a bail of KD 300.
It remains unclear when the case surfaced or how long the man unlawfully held the job.
Kuwait has stepped up a crackdown on fake degrees over the past months. Authorities are thoroughly vetting education certificates presented by civil servants to get jobs. The Ministry of Education and the Civil Service Commission have recently taken steps to detect bogus degrees by examining the education certificates of all state employees obtained since the year 2000.
In July, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported that authorities would order employees found guilty of furnishing fake documents to refund the state money they had illegally earned.
Any employee found to have submitted a fake education certificate will be considered a 'debtor' and required to repay all earnings received as allowances since presenting the certificate.
Additional legal actions will be taken against the offenders.
