SA Ambassador in Japan “Regrets” Fake Degree Claim

Mohau Pheko, South Africa’s ambassador to Japan, has said she regrets claiming she had a degree that she didn’t actually have, which came from a dubious university in America that closed after it was found to be selling degrees online.

Pheko made the apology last week during an interview with the SABC, although she said that she still addressed herself as “doctor” even though she did not have a doctoral degree, according to news reports. She has been ambassador in Japan since 2012.

It was first reported in the Financial Mail that she had claimed she got her doctoral degree from LaSalle University in the US in 2000, although the university closed in 1996 after it was found to be a “diploma mill”, selling degrees via the Internet.

According to news reports, Pheko is the latest in a number of ANC officials to have lied about their qualifications, and Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande said last month that these people who were found guilty of the practise should be named and shamed.

The Democratic Alliance has called for Pheko to be suspended and said that President Jacob Zuma had been made aware of the fabricated degree in 2010 already, when Pheko was made ambassador to Canada.

According to the Financial Mail, “It would be easy to write off her appointment as another example of cadre deployment, as the number of political appointees to the diplomatic corps has been steadily rising in the Zuma era. SA has 126 missions in 109 countries, costing the taxpayer about R2,5bn/year. According to Monyela, 70 percent of them are career diplomats, but according to two other officials in the department, the ratio is fast tipping in favour of political appointees, not all of whom are fit for the positions they now hold.”