Myanmar’s new finance minister was shocked when he discovered that his PhD was fake.
Kyaw Win, 68, is one of the 18 people included in the incoming cabinet of democracy veteran Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy will take office by March end.
Win said on Wednesday he was shocked to discover his PhD was fake after netizens pointed out he had been a victim of an alleged scam run out of Pakistan that ensnared thousands of others.
An official CV issued by the NLD shortly after the cabinet announcement said he held a PhD from a college in the United States called Brooklyn Park University.
But social media users quickly pointed out that Brooklyn Park was one of a number of “fake online organisations” allegedly created by a Pakistani group that ran a “fraudulent degree empire” out of Karachi until its exposure last year.
“I openly admit it that I studied at this fake online university in my older age,” Kyaw Win, who confirmed he would take on the finance portfolio, said, explaining how like many others, he had a thirst for education but little opportunity to study abroad.
“Education has been my dream since I was young. I never stopped studying my whole life. But I could not study abroad because I did not have enough money,” he said.
Kyaw Win said he did not discover the degree was fake until the news spread on Facebook after his cabinet nomination on Tuesday, an experience he described as “really painful”.