13 NUL students convicted of forging certificates
MASERU — Thirteen National University of Lesotho (NUL) students have been convicted of forging their Cambridge Overseas School Certificates to enroll at the university.
The Maseru Magistrate’s Court slapped each student with a one-year sentence.
They could however avoid going to jail if they pay a fine of M1 000.
The magistrates’ court said the students should raise the money in the next 30 days, starting from Monday last week, if they want to avoid going to jail.
During the trial, the court heard that the students also used the fraudulent certificates to get scholarships from the National Manpower Development Secretariat (NMDS).
This brings to 62 the number of students at NUL who are being investigated by the police over fake certificates.
So far 35 of the suspects have appeared in court.
The students misrepresented to NUL when they produced fake COSC certificates claiming they had been issued by the Examinations Council of Lesotho.
They were sentenced to one year or pay a fine of M1 000.
They were given one month to pay their fine.
Police spokesperson Masupha Masupha had told the Lesotho Times that there is a syndicate that is targeting students who would have failed.
“At first we thought that other districts were not affected but as investigations intensified we discovered that this is a nationwide problem,” Masupha said.
“This syndicate seems to have hired agents countrywide who tout students and their parents to buy fake certificates.”
The price of a bogus certificate ranges between M2 000 and M8 000, he said.
Masupha said to prevent this kind of fraud, the certificates should have security features that will be difficult to forge.
He said they are currently concentrating on tertiary institutions but will soon raid workplaces to investigate if there are some culprits who have already graduated.
“It’s very unfortunate that some people who have worked hard to earn better results never get a chance to further their studies because these ones take their chances of getting scholarships using fake certificates,” he said.
“The forged certificates have the ‘A’ grades that give the tertiary institutions an impression that these are brilliant students who deserve to further their studies,” he added.
The NUL fake certificates scandal comes barely seven months after police arrested some Ecol and Limkokwing University of Creative Technology officials who were suspected of being part of a syndicate that produced bogus certificates for 43 students.
Comment by Chepa on 7 March 2013:
Lesotho is an extremely weak country. How can people doing this type of crime be slapped with a mere M1000 esp when it’s so widespread? The impact of what they are doing has far reaching effects to the economy and hence the livelihood of everyone, hee batho Lesotho!
Comment by sematsatsa on 7 March 2013:
banana le bashanyana ba na kannete ba soasoa, COSC e lahlile hleng ea paseha, na hona le lebaka le ka etsang hore batho ba lule ba etsa ntho tse fatse tsee?
Comment by Chepa on 7 March 2013:
This should stop and the people involved should be deterred from doing this by making them pay more (M10 000 fine or more). Imagine how many poor hardworking kids have been denied further education because of these sqauwking hawks taking NMDS funding, nxa !
Comment by Tlheko on 7 March 2013:
Only M1000!those criminals made more money than that.ke batla ba iketsetse chelete.
Comment by mapheo on 7 March 2013:
This people are very selfish,i wonder if they ever thought they will be a time they have to go to jail,no fine let them rot in jail…
Comment by mapheo on 7 March 2013:
This people are very selfish,i wonder if they ever thought they will be a time they have to go to jail,no bail let them rot in jail…
Comment by Nakeli on 7 March 2013:
M1000 fines renders the whole effort a mockery. People pay between 2000 & 8000 to commit a crime and when they are convicted they are asked to pay a fine of 1000! A mere 1000! The justice system promotes fraud…
Comment by keizer on 7 March 2013:
poverty promotes frued in our contry if you donot go to university you will not earn the sarviving salary. Bed job and frued are also very common in lesotho. Basotho We always Say viva poverty becouse the goverment that ruled lesotho is the same govement as of 1966. What change do we expect
Comment by No name on 7 March 2013:
mxm
Comment by Kausi on 7 March 2013:
I may be wrong but I have a strong feeling that the majority of those culprits were DC supporters. The reason being that from its formation, the DC seemed to be the safe heaven of fraudsters. It was not surprising that one Lineo Mabusela Molise (DC MP) appealed for education ministry to “have liniency” in dealing with COSC certificate fraudsters. That lady was at pains to justify her case in parliament.
Comment by LEKHOARA on 7 March 2013:
I think the newly introduced education system is going to solve the problem of focusing only on disciplines that are perceived to provide good jobs. In the old system people who do not make it in subjects that are perceived essential are made to feel that they are failures, hence an attempt to manipulate the grades to make it to the world of the successful.
Education is meant to assist a person to realise his/her potential in whatever area of life, and not be forced to pass certain subjects that are perceived important. The education system has failed to make those students realise their potential, rather they were left with the feeling of failure to make it into the world of the successful.
As it is evident now that most graduates are becoming part of the unemployment statistics.The education system needs to take us out of this.
Comment by Lefefooane on 7 March 2013:
Dear Tabloid Lesotho Times
Why did you find it so difficult to get us the readers the names of the convicts? Why did you find it difficult to get us an opinion from NUL on the action it will take, in particular to give us the statistics from NUL relating to the courses and years of study the fake frausters were in? Of paramount importance it would help to know if they managed to progress from one year to the other at NUL. If so, how would they have managed to pass at NUL when they would have otherwise failed entry exam(COSC)
Next time, Lesotho Times should be a bit more analytical and informing in its news articles. Being a weakly paper is different from being a daily paper. Daily papers normally “do business” by “breaking stories” while the weekly papers are more analytical and give more depth in their coverage of news. For instance, in South Africa, Sowetan or daily Sun would report the same story as Mail and Guradian. But Mail and Guradian, would be a bit more analytical because M&G stays on thel shelves for 7 days as opposed to Daily sun.
Appreciated though, hope you put more effort in being a bit analytical than just “breaking stories”.
Comment by Chepa on 7 March 2013:
Limkwokwing is made for people like them who did not do well at COSC level, so why do they have to do this ?
Comment by Bobete on 7 March 2013:
@Kausi
couldnt agree with you more. Ausi eo o na eme lipents’ele molaleng mona trying to justify leniency on certificate fraudsters case, hona le ntho eo a e bilietsang.
Comment by lehlanya on 7 March 2013:
Lesotho times lona le printa feela re sa tsebe mahlakore ka bobeli nxhaa!!
Comment by washington on 7 March 2013:
pathetic, disgusting, mediocre. someone stills M30 000 from NMDS and they are made to pay M1000. I just wander when will judgements get reviewed in our legal systems. the escalating crime level in this country is because of this pathetic fines given culprits. it is also unfortunate when some people work hard to pass their COSC but can’t get government sponsorship because they got poor 2nd class relative to someone with a fake 1st class pass
Comment by Tsotsopana on 8 March 2013:
Weldone monna Lefefooane,hee Lesotho le fana ka taba batang man! Do they still call themselves proffesionals on their job? Do they qualify for that kind of a job. Hmm bana bona ke hlokomela hore ba fositse proffesion.
Comment by tswene on 8 March 2013:
Che Lesotho mona teng re tataisoa ke litswene, na motho a entseng bobolu bo bokaana a ka ahloloa sekete feela, hopolang ngoana eane oa bicycle le phone oa ho ahloloa 10 000. oa bona bothata Lesotho re sebeletsa ho bakisana feela eseng hohong. we are not going anywhere guys, I can assure you that. le ka mora lilemo tse 50 tla be ntse re le hona mona haeba re le lehlohonolo adawise rea tetete.
Comment by Bessy on 8 March 2013:
M1000 ha se letho man. Evrytime wn a persn commits crime in our poor coutry re sentse re tsba hore o tlo ntsha sekete sa maloti or get jailed for 1yr. I wsh they did that in RSA,so that they could c wat wl hapen to them
Comment by Lefefooane on 8 March 2013:
@Bessy, I could not agree more. I think the problem lies with our law professionals who actually advise the law makers. Our local lawyers need to revamp their training so that it is consistent with the international standards: I will give two examples:
1. In Lesotho a law would say a ” A person will be fined amount NOT EXCEEDING a certain amaount whereas longago the international practice is ” a person will be fined amount NOT BELOW a certain amount.”. Do you notice the difference. If not, I will show you. In the former the court is given an upper limit while in the latter the court is given the lower limit. Thus in the latter practice a court of law imposes a sentence equivalent to crime as opposed to the former whereby there is a restriction. For instance, In Zambia, when you are found selling expired food items the fine MINIMUM is set whereas in Lesotho our poor lawyers tied the fine to a certain amount. The problem with our system is that it does not factor in the gravity of the act and the cost of money (inflation). Hence we are always stuck with laws laws imposing amazingly low fines.
Comment by Senotlolo on 8 March 2013:
Clearly the education sector in Lesotho is facing very serious challenges. MOET has to develop clear strategies for strengthening the education system, and developing mechanisms for providing alternative skills for poor performers and dropouts.
Comment by Nyakz on 8 March 2013:
This people are blameless.The government don’t give a fuck.Lesotho mona ke survival of the fittest.Thanks for being lenient to these guys,u have an understanding.
Comment by tjontjobina on 8 March 2013:
ntjoetseng hore na botho ha ba ba ahlotsoe ba khutlela NUL hape joalo kaha e ka ha o ea etsahala letho? le NMDS e ntse tsoela pele ho ba fa chelete? NUL le tse ling tse amehileng ha li itlhakise hore na li etsang ka batho ba joalo ha ba fumanoe ba le molato ke lekhotla.NMDS le oena e hlalosetse sechaba se tsebe le hore na chelete ea sechaba e tla khutlela joang mokotleng e le hore ba bang ba tsebe ho fumana molemo ho eona.
Comment by Mapingu on 9 March 2013:
I agree with Chepa. A M1000 fine is an insult to the intelligence of any reasonable person. It trivializes this grevious criminal act and encourage those who are doing it to continue unabated. This is more of a pat on the back for these guyz than any kind of deterrent. Certainly most of those involved have lots of money.They could afford to pay prices as high as M8000 to obtain fruadulents certificates in steady of supplementing and working hard to pass the much-easier to pass than fail form E. Some even paid for legal representation. So, can such well-to-do people consider a mere M1000 as punishment. Certainly not. If this kind of behaviour is not seriously addressed then all other efforts to improve education quality in this country will remain talk-shops. These are the kind of people, who go through University, get degrees by hook and crook, and then go out in the world where they find themselves incapable of spelling their own names, yet they are holding a NUL degree. At the end of it all everyone at NUL is lambasted left-right-centred as being second/third grade lecturers who can’t teach properly. But how can you teach individuals to pass university work if the individuals did do their secondary school work, may be even their primary school work. Just buy their way thru a corrupt system. It is unfair to the nation for authorities to fail to come on hard on this kind of criminals; and any other kind of criminals.
We want zero tolerance to crime and that can only happen if detterent punishments are applied, no other way.
Comment by S'bongile on 9 March 2013:
NUL and Limko ……. are two of the same kind.
Comment by Lefefooane on 13 March 2013:
Often I am disappointed by the so-called MISA-Lesotho chapter. They never seek to empower the so-called their members alias journalists, they only time they appear on air is when they advocate media policy, whatever media policy means. Because day in day out we consume this junk of unbalanced and unearthed news feeds from our tabloids and MISA is doing nothing. This Lesotho times thing really must be brought to book or be downgraded because lately they have lowered their standards. When they landed here, Lesotho times guys were doing a good job but today, it’s shameful. Their paper is full of cut and paste stuff from the internet and some few unbalanced stories then they go to the streets to fetch R6.00/copy from news hungry readers. We need protection really.
Kea ipiletsa ho MISA Lesotho le ho ‘muso re kopa tsireletso. This is day light robbery.
Comment by Lefefooane on 13 March 2013:
I even wonder if this Article title is accurate. You see, it is like the fraudsters committed fraud while at NUL when in fact they committed the fraud before they got to NUL. Get this properly, the desperate fraudsters so badly wanted to access NUL that they committed fraud which enabled them to get to NUL. Even though NUL name appears in this article, I tend to differ with the editor. The buck should stop with Examination Council of Lesotho (ECOL) whose results were forged. It was not NUL results in question here rather it was COSC/ECOL results hence the poor editor should have waged the war to ECOL rather than to NUL. The culprits forged ECOL results probabnly due to poor security featrures then presented the forged results to an LMPS officer who certified them as true copies then went to NUL. Hantle ho ne ho thoe NUL e etse joang ha lepolesa le tempile le bile le ngotse “Ceritified as true copy” on those forged results.
Think about this properly. Even though NUL has its own deficiencies, in this case I choose to stand with NUL. The buck should stop with Examination Council of Lesotho or LMPS fraud detection (those clerks at LMPS who certify each and every document). I have been at LMPS to certify my certificates and the poor guy never even try scrutinize them to see if there could be any tempering. LMPS just certifies everything and later on they rush to “investigate” and prosecute as though they(LMPS) were never part of the value chain. Nxa.
Comment by Mmannyeo on 26 March 2013:
Ebe Nul eona e tsekisoang bathong?How is the admissions office expected to know whether certain results a re forged or not?Kapo is ther any identifying mark for such certificates…i agree with those who say Exams Council shoul blame.Ka mokho re sebetsang ka thata eleng khale re suppa re feila re khathal a matl are tsoha morolo…M1000.00 hake utloe na ke bakeng sang