The number of engineers accredited by the Saudi Council of Engineers (SCE) reached 191,735 by the end of last year, of whom 6.77 percent were Saudis, a senior official of the SCE said.

SCE’s Media and PR Director Nasser Abdullatif said the SCE is currently verifying the sources of their engineering qualifications to ensure the legitimacy of their degrees before the issuance of the certificate of authorization for them to exercise professional engineering work. The SCE said some 3,000 degrees are forged on monthly basis, after having been issued by bogus universities.

Further, the SCE conducted tests on fundamentals of engineering for 630 engineers, and assigned professional engineering tests for 65 engineers last year, a representative from the SCE noted.

“To activate and expand engineering services kingdom-wide, some 314 engineering offices and another 110 branch offices were opened during the last year, while the licenses of 843 offices and 180 branch offices were renewed,” the SCE official said.