Saleh Bakr Al-Tayyar Al-Madinah It is no longer a secret that a number of Saudis holding senior positions in both the public and private sectors are holders of forged university degrees. Websites on the Internet and the print media have uncovered this scandal about which we should not keep silent. This crime is not just confined to the people who have faked their educational qualifications but is also of great concern to the Saudi citizens who deal with them daily. The citizens will be dealing with officials with no real qualifications or vocational experience to qualify them to hold these senior positions. It also concerns the Kingdom as these people with fake degrees may take erroneous or potentially tragic decisions. Therefore we should not only be content with uncovering and defaming the holders of the forged degrees but we also should not hesitate to send them to courts to be tried on charges of fraud. We should immediately relieve them of their positions to prevent others from following suit. If we punish them by only prohibiting them from using their faked titles in official letters we will be very lenient toward them and will be encouraging others to do the same. As long as the punishment is not at the level of the crime, people will not be deterred from obtaining faked certificates to climb to top positions. Are we really aware of the risk of people with forged degrees becoming university lecturers, bank managers, top engineers, factory supervisors, consultants, experts or senior officials in government departments? Are we aware of the danger of placing people with forged degrees in places where they will decide the fate of the citizens with genuine degrees who studied hard to get them? Are we really aware of the fact that citizens with forged degrees are holding top positions in the government and private sector while the Saudis with genuine degrees are still looking for employment? Those who cover up for citizens with forged degrees are accomplices. The matter has no humanitarian aspect so as to justify it by saying that putting someone out of his job is like cutting his throat. It will not only be made legitimate by the administrative justification that relieving these people of their posts will create a vacuum. It is an ethical, legal, religious and moral issue which concerns the citizens and the homeland. Keeping silent on the holders of forged degrees is in itself a grave crime.
