The Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) said in a statement yesterday that it has uncovered a subsidy scam involving a tutorial centre defrauding the government-funded Continuing Education Development Plan out of over one million patacas, involving nearly 170 local residents.
The statement pointed out that between 2016 and 2019 the tutorial centre allegedly offered either cash kickbacks or free lectures to residents who applied for its courses that had never actually started.
CCAC graft-busters discovered that while at least 170 residents had enrolled in the government-subsidised courses, none of them had ever attended any classes, the statement said, pointing out that the registrants had received half of the course funding in return, or could instead enrol in other courses free of charge offered by the centre.
All of the courses were subsidised by the Continuing Education Development Plan of the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ).
According to the statement, the owner and a staff member of the tutorial centre had falsely reported to the Education and Youth Development Bureau that the registrants had attended the courses.
In fact, the registrants allegedly cooperated with the centre’s instructors to fabricate their attendance records.
The case involving fraud, document forgery and computer forgery has been transferred to the Public Prosecution Office (MP) for follow-up investigation, the statement noted.
The statement underlined that when applying for any type of government subsidy, one must abide by the law.
The Continuing Education Development Plan was introduced by the government in 2011, while the fourth round, which began in 2020, will end next year.
During both previous and current rounds of the Continuing Education Development Plan 2020-2023, locals aged at least 15 are able to apply for a subsidy of 6,000 patacas for local or overseas educational programmes.
E-participation procedure implemented for 4th round of plan
Meanwhile, the Education and Youth Development Bureau said in a statement yesterday that in order to strengthen monitoring and prevent irregularities, it has implemented an e-participation procedure and strengthened supervision for the ongoing fourth round of the Continuing Education Development Plan, adding that participating residents are now required to register in person with their ID card for courses and to sign in with their ID card for each lesson.
At the same time, the statement pointed out, the bureau has introduced risk management mechanisms to reinforce the inspection of “high-risk” educational institutions while sharing examples of suspected illegal cases to alert participating entities about the need to abide by the law.
The statement noted that since 2020 DSEDJ officials have conducted more than 6,000 site inspections at participating institutions, reviewed over 19,000 documents and carried out more than 7,000 random tests. The statement added that the operation of the educational institutions was also monitored through the collection of over 20,000 questionnaires from course registrants.
According to the statement, the bureau has so far received two referral cases. It did not elaborate.
A number of continuing education subsidy scams have been discovered by the CCAC since the plan was launched by the government in 2011.
This graphic provided by the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) yesterday shows the QR code of the “public monitoring platform” for the government’s Continuing Education Development Plan. The platform enables members of the public to report suspected continuing education subsidy scams.
