Saudi Gazette report

AL-AHSA — More than 3,000 fake or forged engineering certificates issued abroad were seized during a massive campaign launched by the Saudi Council of Engineers, according to the chairman of the authority's board of directors Saad Al-Shahrani.

He said as many as 2,288 certificates were found to be fake, while 712 others were forged. He said all these certificates were issued in the name of universities outside the Kingdom.

"Only a very few number of Saudis possessed bogus engineering degrees," he told the Arabic daily Al-Watan.

Al-Shahrani said the campaign against the fake engineering certificates was launched by the council in collaboration with the public security, the passport police and other control and supervisory bodies.

The chairman said expatriates caught with forged or fake certificates would be imprisoned, fined and then deported.

He explained that the council maintained contacts with a number of universities around the world to verify the authenticity of their certificates.

Shahrani said there were 1,600 women engineers, architects and designers in the Kingdom but the majority of them are expatriates working for the private sector.

He however said the number of the Saudi men and women engineers had constantly been on the rise.