The Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) announced in a statement yesterday that an Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) official, who was tasked with assessing applications from youth community associations for the granting of government subsidies on the organisation of activities, clandestinely controlled a youth association and defrauded the bureau of activity subsidies amounting to around 500,000 patacas.
The case has meanwhile been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) for further investigation.
According to the statement, the CCAC received a complaint last year that alleged that the DSEDJ official falsely reported the number of participants and other details of certain activities organised by the youth association with the aim of defrauding the bureau of subsidies.
CCAC investigators discovered that in order to evade the bureau’s system on the avoidance of a conflict of interests, the suspect set up and registered a new youth association in the names of his wife and a number of friends in 2017, the statement said. The suspect secretly controlled the operation of the association in his capacity as an adviser, the statement said.
According to the statement, the suspect applied for subsidies from the bureau many times in the name of the association or in the guise of other youth associations.
As he was tasked with assessing applications from youth associations for activity subsidies, he was familiar with the bureau’s criteria and standards on assessing and vetting such applications, the statement said.
According to the statement, the suspect defrauded the bureau of subsidies by forging receipts and other documentary evidence that overstated activities’ expenses and number of participants. In addition, he also concealed the fact that the association charged participants fees for certain tours it organised.
Moreover, the suspect took advantage of his position to give positive views on the association to his superior and suggest that the bureau pay the association subsidies, even though he knew that the respective application cases involved document forgery and false reports of activity expenses, the statement said.
The statement also said that after the respective deadlines for applications for activity subsidies expired, the suspect still accessed the bureau’s subsidy application system to input data for the various applications. He also drafted proposals that suggested that his superior approve the applications, and uploaded the proposals to the system. Eventually the applications for activity subsidies were approved, despite the fact that the deadlines for their applications had expired.
According to the statement, the application cases involved more than a dozen activities that took place in and outside Macau, and the fraudulently obtained defrauded amounted to around 500,000 patacas.
In addition, the statement said that after becoming aware that the bureau was carrying out an internal review of the applications for subsidies made by the association, the suspect removed the internal assessment documents from the bureau’s server and gave them to members of the association, with the aim of enabling them to prepare to answer questions from DSEDJ inspectors who carried out the internal review process.
According to the statement, the public servant faces a string of charges such as abuse of power, computer forgery, and illegal use of computer data. He and five members of the youth associations also face document forgery and fraud charges.
