UAE plans law to crack down on the forged qualifications market
The UAE is stepping up efforts to combat fraudsters tricking their way into employment using forged qualifications.
A planned tougher law will not only target dishonest job seekers but also rogue recruiters and employers who knowingly accept fake degrees and other certificates.
The clampdown on bogus credentials was revealed at a meeting of the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research last week.
GCC officials tasked with tackling fake qualifications said member states should act together to fight the practice.
“Unified regulations are especially needed in Gulf countries, as the job market here is the target of many job seekers worldwide,” said Dr Khamees Al Bloushi, a member of a GCCwide committee that verifies the credentials of job seekers, speaking at the ECSSR talk.
“We need to keep up with the advanced methods used to fake such degrees.”
He said dozens of cases of people using bogus degrees to gain employment in the region were discovered recently, especially in “critical academic and managerial positions”.
Currently, people caught with fake certificates can face up to three years in prison under UAE criminal law. Officials did not disclose when the changes to the law would be set out.
The global black market for forged qualifications is worth Dh3.7 billion a year, the ECSSR said.
In January, a senior UAE minister said 143 attempts to pass off forged certificates as genuine were detected last year.
Industry figures said the practice is widespread, as is embellishing CVs.
“There is a challenge in this region because it is a zero employment zone,” said Vijay Gandhi, a director in the Dubai office of Korn Ferry, a recruitment and HR consultancy.
“That means you can’t stay here if you don’t have a job, which creates panic among people who are suddenly out of work.”
The issue of forged degrees has been a long-standing problem in the region, Mr Gandhi said.
However, he said a number of new measures had led to a recent decline in offences. One contributing factor was companies being encouraged to have qualifications attested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before hiring someone, he said.
Yet he said many people are still chancing their arm by submitting fake qualifications. “Some markets are more likely than others to have people with fake qualifications,” he said.
“It’s particularly prevalent in middle management positions because senior roles tend to be filled by people who are recruited due to their experience and reputation.”
Mr Gandhi said that while there was a thriving black market in MBA business qualifications, often the problem was recruiters not showing enough due diligence.
“One way they could do that is by checking their credentials at the start of the recruitment process.
“Quite often their qualifications are not looked at until a job offer has already been made and they are in the process of applying for an employment visa.”
Another Dubai recruiter suggested the solution could be relatively simple.
“In the UAE you need to have a degree to work,” said David Mackenzie, group managing director of Mackenzie Jones.
“Maybe if they removed that stipulation it would mean people wouldn’t forge their qualifications.”
In January at the Federal National Council, Minister of State for Higher Education, Dr Ahmad Al Falasi, said the country’s status as a “top destination” provided a lure for people to forge documentation to land lucrative positions.
He said the Ministry of Higher Education was committed to ensuring cases of potential forgery did not slip through the net.