People with fake PhDs are cheats: Purge them from Malawi public office
Our attention as Nyasa Times has been drawn to a raging debate on social media with regards to authenticity of the doctorate degrees of some of our senior public officers in government.
The debated has been caused after a scrutiny of doctorate degrees of two senior public officers: embattled Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) chief executive officer Collins Magalasi and Malawi police boss George Kainja.
At the heart of the debate is a concern regarding the culture of buying off doctorate degrees from unaccredited and, sometimes, untraceable universities and using them to claim top positions in government.
Though as Nyasa Times we cannot verify the authenticity of Magalasi and Kainja’s doctorate degrees, we are of a view that people who use fake certificates, diplomas and degrees to get jobs are criminals, as such, they should not be anywhere close to public office.
If we are talking of draining the swamp, we need to ensure that people who hold office are rightfully qualified.
It will be an insult to the rightfully educated people to be led by a person with questionable credentials.
The tragedy with people with questionable credentials is that they spend their time in office ensuring that their job is protected, than executing the work they are paid for.
This is why, as Nyasa Times, we put it to government to investigate credentials of all senior public officers. People with fake credentials are cheats: Purge them from public office.
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If you want to ask how George Kainja performed in class please as his former lecturer and a dpp minister and MP Dr. Emmanuel Fabiano who was his lecturer from 1988-1992. There was also Professor John Kalenga Saka who was teaching or giving lecturers on Physical Chemistry which is the toughest. Those lawyers making noise like Danwood could not attempt sciences and there was late Tomoka who left sciences to do Law just like Sunduzwayo Madise who majored in Physics. Sundu knows how tough sciences are. The PhDs are just to assist such people understand more things. George Kainja was employed based on his Bachelor of Education Degree. The PhD does not count at all mungovutika.
Is it a crime for a police officer to possess PhD? Police is now full of educated blood. Let’s all accept that Kainja is among the few and most educated government officials.
Leave Manganya alone I think he earned it,I watched the award ceremony live in a far away land where the auditorium had 98 percent whites of substance .
Actually most people with PhD are idiots. So we don’t care about this. We had professor of law but he never respected the rule of the law. Shit
True all fake PhDs should be exposed:
..Kainja of Police
..Jean Mathangs
..Ben Phiri
..Colling Magalasi
..the list goes on!
Carry on with the list
Gospel also has his thesis written for him at Chanco. The guy doesn’t attend classes but hire s people to write things for him and I am not surprised with the dull answer that he gave on the I.3 trillion.
What is the fuss about here anyway. Do you think the president appointed George Kainja because of the PhD or because he is a senior officer with long service in the Malawi Police Service. I believe it is because of the latter that he has been appointed to that position. Looking back in the history of the Malawi Police Service, which other Inspector General had a PhD that you should make noise about Kainja’s PhD which has no relevance to his appointment at all. Stop this nonsense.
Ben Phiri kodi?
Eya bwana..All this backlash Chifukwa choti Mbava Ziri pa mpanipani koopsa …IG sakuumira Unyolo ….The IG is doing a very Good Job …They tried to send him to Exile in Zimbabwe ….Zinakanika pano abwerano ya PHD ….
Malawians love to hold PhDs but hate the hard work involved in earning it so they buy it. They know a guy who knows a guy who happens to be a registrar of some university and he awards PhDs to anyone including himself. Some people in Malawi have 4 PhDs or more yet very useless 8n the head. Even top government officials and politicians have questionable papers nde we wonder how they can fight corruption.
Many people comment things which they don’t understand when an institution is registered and accredited by nche that accreditation last for 7 years pending inspection in process when that institution is deregistered that paper which was obtained within accreditation period remain valid despite deregistration of an institution that’s the case with Dr Kainja with Columbia University. Make research read nche act and minimum requirements for nche you will understand what am driving at.
How can a credible certificate come from a university which has NOT been accredited. Kainja is a fraudster. He can’t serve in the position of IG.
What do you know about accreditation
The fact that an institution of learning is deregistered is a sign that it is fake. Institutional of learning that offers credible qualifications are not deregistered. The Columbia university was a fake one. Which other universities was it attached to or being partnered with. The evidence is that those PhD you cannot get a job anywhere in the world than Malawi. What ranking was Columbia university , first in Malawi, then Eastand Central Africa, even Southern Africa and the whole of Africa. What ranking was it in the world? The university ranking is a clear evidence of how that institutional of learning is performing and is evidence of the quality of is products that employers can be attracted to. Check even the ranking of the university of Malawi in Africa. Most people have indeed fake PhD’s or their thesis was written by other groups. Kainja’s PhD is fake.
if you talk of ranking then even the state owned universities in our land are far beyond what you would think of.
Kodi what is a pH d if one cannot perform. We have seen professors failing this country. We need performers, hard working and honesty prople yo develop Malawi.
That’s the case, true. It was even indicated in one of the dailies that all papers obtained before 2018 from the said university were valid. This message was from NCHE.
I agree with Nyasa Times and the tendency must be discouraged at all cost. Unfortunately, the authoriities have deliberately ignored it because they have in one way or the other been that malpractice such that they have been awarded useless honourary degrees beginning with Bakili Muluzi and Getrude. I guess Muluzi is the one who opened a can of worms in 1994 when he bought his PhD at Lincoln University in the US. This has not left out the so called Pastors as if to earn a title of a doctor of philosophy one has to become a Pastor. However, I am convinced that by putting up this editorial, Nyasa Times has established that these two public officers indeed have fake PhDs. Why not dig deeper to further establish whether or not the institutions are credible and if not lay them bare so that they should not find a chance to bring up any self-defence. If you cannot verify the authenticity of the degrees, I think you are too quick to condemn them and the condemnation is unfair.
Don’t confuse an Honorary degree or PhD with a FAKE degree or PhD. An honorary is awarded by a credible University. A FAKE degree or PhD is awarded by a FAKE university which has not been accredited. The Muluzi, Gertrude Mutharika know(and we know) that they never studied. Their degrees were just given as a recognition.
For once Nyasa Times you say the truth. Please Tonse do something about this. This is a serious matter. Such people are pathetic….!!!
And while you are at it, stop addressing Joyce Banda and Bakili Muluzi as ‘Dr’, they know nothing about writing thesis’s for a doctorate or even a degree. They bought these degrees to their predecessors because of these misguided misconception that a person who holds the office of president has to be a Doctor.
I have nothing against people who hold PhD’s but I would love for Malawi to be led by an ordinary ‘Mr’ who won’t obsess about buying a degree from the east. As we have seen from the nutty polofesa who just vacated the seat to make way for Dr Chakwera, he was one clueless idiot despite his apparent ‘education.’ For six years Malawi has been led by Mr Bean, a buffoon who slept the whole six and can’t talk sensible things. And he had the audacity to say Chakwera was not his level to debate him!! Idiota!
Kkkkkkkkk Koma yaaaah ziliko Kuno Ku malawi you can repeat this again and again 😂😂😂😂🤝
If Kainja has a fake phd then let him be fired we don’t need rotten people in this government.
Can’t government introduce a system of checking the candidate’s qualifications before the job? There is a lot of Malawians suffering to get better education in order to get job in government after their genuine degrees. Magalasi & Kainja should testify how their qualifications are accredited.
Even Arafat Hamdan Chilima has a fake PhD. Manganya and Kaliati have fake PhDs too asatinyanse.
Good argument but I don’t think the two people you have cited here (Magalasi and Kainja) were appointed based on their PhDs. They still could have been appointed on these positions with or without PhDs. For example, no IG in Malawi has had a PhD before this so called Kainja. So, it is rather misleading to think or conclude that their appointments are due to possessing a PhD.
All the same, the auditing of qualifications is long overdue.
But Kainja is a fraudster, therefore he CANNOT be IG. His predecessors never wanted to parade fake PhDs
Bandawe from all your comments ayayaya ndiwe owawidwa mtima koma pepa uchira ndithu. I know you were benefiting alot from stolen money from DPP pepa koma.
true
I wish. I was. Not a criminal.
I am not that educated. I have a degree and a lot of professional qualifications which is a requirement for the work I do. If I apply for job in my profession and people with PhD or master’s degree do the same, they would not stand a chance. I will get the job and I am in the UK. The problem in Malawi is we believe that some one with PhD or whatever is the best. You need skills. PhDs are more academical, that is my opinion.
This is a country where by, if you are president or president’s wife, the first thing you do is to make sure you get a doctorate. I am sure for Kainja, his first degree plus his experience is more than enough to get the IG’s job unless you question that as well.
In Malawi people who works at the filling station need to have certificates either jc or msce so the cleanings in government and private sectors they will ask for jce msce with small money in other case. Go to South Africa they will either ask for experience 😉 or passport ID or work permit with good salary than that of the person who has diploma in Malawi.
I can concur with everything you have said.I f you look at Politicians in the developed countries,you rarely see one with a PHD.One should definitely have a degree may be up to masters but it’s not a necessity.What is a necessity though is the Professional qualifications and Experience. lIke my colleague above am the same and I was hired and one Chap with PHD was left out.
Yeah! In developed countries, apart from looking at ones qualifications, they will very much look at the experience you possess and then combine the two in order for you to be employed. In Malawi, the paper someone flashes around qualifies him/her to get hired. Due to such criteria people have resorted to going about printing fake, useless papers disguised as certificates. That even works better with the cheap, below standard and doubtful PhDs issued by the University of Malawi whose supervisors include the Kainjas. You go to Mzuzu University, some of the Tutors there with PhDs are a joke. Malawi needs a thorough clean up of this nuances.
We know them, there r plenty, Dr Ben is one of them komanso mwati Manganya anakatengera kuti doctorate yake?
We know them, they r plenty
Some Malawians has discovered that having these PHDS will help them to find good job, that’s why they even buy fake ones.Most Malawians don’t have these papers,the government should scrutinize every public official about their qualifications, people who buys, Doctorate degrees, Master degrees, PhDs and some are fake professors,they uses these qualifications to plunder the government money.We should learn from DPP government who bought these qualifications from unknown universities and colleges, some universities and colleges you can not find them on internet when we search for them.It is important to give the opportunity to someone who has a real qualifications whether it’s a higher cerficate, diploma, degree, Masters degree or even a PhD from a university or college that exists than that doesn’t exist at all,coz these people did not learn anything only have aqualification.This government should arrest anyone found with these type of qualifications,they are theives.The country should be moving towards development osati zomangobazi.Kuba starts with the President to the ward councilor.
Malawians like these accolades but nothing to show in terms of ouput
mchacha
ben phili
why was is not quesionable
I agree with your editorial Mr Nyasa times but let us have a sober mind and avoid jumping to conclusions…
First of all let us take an example of the new inspector general Mr Kainja, we all know that he has a degree from the university of Malawi, and a masters degree from a recognised institution, both of which make him more than qualified for the inspector general office that he holds now.
So if it is true that he deliberately obtained a fake PHd the question I would ask is why? What was his motive because he does not need a PHd to become an inspector general or a commissioner of police which is the highest rank in the police service.
I guess the point I am trying to make here is that instead of just looking at people with suspected fake qualifications as crooks we should also look at them as victims of fake instructions that offer such qualifications.
How many institutions in Malawi have been closed down by the authorities for not meeting the required standards even though they had enrolled students? Was this the fault of the students or the institutions themselves for cutting corners to operate in Malawi? And if those students had successfully graduated from those institutions that were later closed down would you blame those students of having fake certificates from institutions that do not exist?
We have so many people in our country who enrolled with such fake institutions which offer competitive tuition fees and take advantage of ordinary Malawians….it is time the Malawi government started cracking down on such institutions to improve the integrity of our education.
And as Malawians let us stop judging other people as crooks without understanding whether they were duped or not.
There are so many fake universities offering fake PHDs to unsuspecting honest students and those institutions are created and run by legitimate professors like Danwood Chirwa who want to make quick money.
Students graduating from such institutions should be viewed as victims and not crooks because the real crooks are the ones who runs those institutions…..
A PhD is purely academic,there is a need to create a new academic area that was not there before.
This is why most PhDs are lecturers.
There is no need for a CEO or IG to be a PhD holder.One can have an equivalent qualification which will not be called PhD,depending on discipline.
On the IG let us remember that our President when he chose his ministers said the Tonse philosophy is to choose people on merit. He clearly sai that merit does not mean academic degrees but a proven track record of achievements. He even pointed out to the fact that there are many people out there plenty of people out there with various degrees but are not delivering anything tangible. And by the do the conditions of appointment for the post of IG in Malawi specify that one has to even have a PHD?
Theres one Dr Moffatt Banda who used his fake degree to get to MEC commissioner position.he has no phD hes a fraudster and needs to be investigated.
Who told that PhDs are prerequisites for employment in the public service? Go to Human Resources Department and find out if they sponsored anyone else for PhDs except in research Institutions like Chitedze where the likes of Dr. Charles Matabwa, Dr. Theu, late Dr. Ben Dzowela etc worked. The PhDs are mostly academicians in the universities and people who go for the are told to go on unpaid leave in government. Even promotions are not based on PhDs in government otherwise there would have been a good number of them. If George Kainja did PhD it was his own wish. If Kachama did PhDs that was out his own. After all it’s Africans who crave for PhDs thinking they would command some respect. Kupusa kokhakokha just like keeping herds of cattle as a prestige and die poor like the nomadic tribes.
In the Public Service after Upgrading your Qualifications you Write Human Resource …Who Respond whether that Qualification is acceptable or not ….If that is not Happening then HR needs to be purged …I remember some years back a Friend’s Dad in the Civil Service went to Canada to do his Undergraduate studies ,came back with a Bachelor’s Degree wrote HR only to be told that the University is not recognized here in Malawi….If this is not the case now then Reforms are needed in the Department of Human Resource at Capital Hill ….
The biggest challenge is everyone wants to be called doctor in the public service. Lloyd Muhara despite his administrative shortfalls was somehow principled by leaving his office Mr Lloyd Muhara. He would have easily been Dr Lloyd Muhara. It starts with our presidents. No Malawi president has left office without being called Dr regardless of whether these doctorates are attained through academic achievements or through purchase. We have had Dr Kamuzu Banda (academic) Dr Bakili Muluzi ( you mention it) Dr Bingu Mutharika ( academic)who changed to Professor ( you mention it), Dr Joyce Banda ( you mention it) Professor APM ( academic), Dr Chakwera (academic). Now even vice presidents are following the same footsteps. Malawi a country of Drs.
As much as we know that these two have fake papers. Believe you me it’s only magalasi who will found to be having fake paper. Thus Malawi I know. Anyway thanks Nyasatimes for bringing this but forget about if you think police boss will be found holding fake paper
101% demotivating
Kainja’s PhD is traceable to a Columbia Commonwealth University Malawi that was duly registered and accredited in Malawi for some years before it’s licence was revoked last year.
Please let’s be fair to Dr Kainja who had previously obtained his master’s degree from Esami in conjunction with Maastricht, and first degree from Chancellor College of university of Malawi.
This cry is long over due. Thank you Nyasatimes for bringing it up once again. The more disheartening reality is that the list of culprits is long especially in government and government agencies and these cheaters are unbelievably entrusted to manage our resources in different positions with perks. Muyambire Columbia certificates ndi awa a pa MIM amanamizira kuti ndi a ku magalande achotsedwe. Quality assurance measures are gravely compromised.
true. Kainja be ready to defend yourself
Amen Nyasatimes. You got that rt. Fake Degrees must be smoked out.
Ndifunseko, Kodi ma PhD aku MIM ndi enieni?
Kkkk abale mutha kumenyedwa nalo funso lanulo
Yes, maPhD aku MIM ndienieni. MIM is just used as an overseas campus of foreign universities e.g. University of Bolton (UK), University of Maastricht (Netherlands),etc. These universities send lecturers to MIM on a regular basis for part time lecturing.