Update | Interdicted education ministry PS Grace McLean's home raided
Published:Friday | March 17, 2023 | 10:44 AM
The home of interdicted acting permanent secretary in the Education Ministry Dr Grace McLean is one of several premises targeted in a series of coordinated operations by law enforcement authorities on Friday, sources have confirmed.
The search and seizure operations are related to alleged financial impropriety involving the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Joint Committee on Tertiary Education (JCTE).
The operations were conducted at nine locations, five in Kingston and St Andrew, three in St James and one in Westmoreland, sources disclosed.
No arrests were made.
However, according to law enforcement sources, several devices and documents linked to the investigation were seized.
In 2021 Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis recommended that portfolio minister Fayval Williams ask the police or an anti-corruption agency to further investigate how $124 million in taxpayers' money was spent by the JCTE.
Monroe Ellis revealed that based on HEART Trust's financial records, $75 million was transferred to JCTE between September 2017 and September 2018 to train 250 students in the Occupational Associate Degree (OAD) programme.
The decision to transfer funds directly to JCTE in order to fund a unit within the education ministry was questionable, said Monroe Ellis, given that the project charter gave management responsibility for the programme to the ministry via the Centre of Occupational Studies (COS).
The auditor general reported that the HEART/NSTA Trust could not confirm that the $75 million transferred to JCTE was utilised to provide funds to COS in the ministry as stipulated in the project charter.
McLean indicated that the ministry did not receive any funds from JCTE.
In her probe, Monroe Ellis also found that between February 2019 and June 2020, the education ministry, under the leadership of McLean, transferred sums totalling approximately $75.9 million to JCTE using its TRN.
Further, despite being informed in January 2020 by the chairman that JCTE had become a private entity, McLean allowed transfers by the ministry to the committee amounting to $11.2 million between April and June 2020.
Monroe Ellis further argued that JCTE Limited had no legal basis to obtain money from the Government.
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