Education center staff accused of embezzling continuing education subsidies
The Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) has reported another case where a local education center and nearly 170 residents allegedly embezzled over MOP1 million in subsidies from the Continuing Education Development Plan.
The report comes after CCAC discovered a separate case involving the Continuing Education Development Plan in August this year.
The corruption watchdog received a report back in 2020 to the effect that a manager and a staff member at the education center attracted nearly 170 local residents to apply to the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEDJ) for subsidized courses under the plan by offering cash rebates or free enrollment in other courses between 2016 and 2019.
However, the courses in question were never conducted. The students, without attending the courses, could receive cash rebates amounting to a half of the subsidy, or take other courses held by the center for free, CCAC noted in the report.
The person-in-charge and the staff member of the center reported false attendance records to the bureau and colluded with the instructors and students to forge attendance records. Eventually, the subsidies were granted.
The suspects have allegedly committed fraud, document forgery, improper use of identification documents belonging to other persons and computer forgery. The case has been referred to the Public Prosecutions Office for follow-up.
CCAC stated that although the department has already taken measures to eradicate the problems concerning the falsified course enrollments, citizens should still abide by the law when applying for any kind of government subsidy to avoid falling foul of the law due to personal greed.
In August, the watchdog issued a report on a DSEDJ employee who had secretly managed a youth association and allegedly embezzled subsidies for activities from the DSEDJ through false reports of the number of participants and contents of activities.
The case involved more than a dozen activities both inside and outside of Macau and the subsidies embezzled amounted to over MOP500,000 in total.
