The Minister for Education Mahendra Reddy today met with School managements in the Western division.
He reminded them that government is closely monitoring the use of free education grants given to them, and the misuse of these grants will not be tolerated.
Meeting with school stake holders here in Lautoka this morning, the education minister outlined various areas the ministry wants improved in the running of schools. One in particular is the use of free education grant.
“We have a couple of concerns how the free education grant is utilized. We will remove the use of accounting firms to audit your accounts, its too expensive and also difficult to get accountants to audit your accounts every year. We can use accounting graduates and teachers from other schools to audit your accounts as long as there’s no conflict of interest,” said Dr. Reddy.
The ministry has allowed also school managements to utilize these grants in repair work and building of infrastructures, however there are still numerous breaches.
“Funds are unaccounted for thousands of dollars, breach of procurement policy. Managers have been paid big salary, managers wives are being given jobs in schools, contracts for constructions given to the manager’s construction company or construction company under manager’s wife name. Loan given to management”
Reddy says the money given in good faith are not used for the betterment of the school, and this has put the government in a difficult position.
“Money is now flowing through the school to someone else, there’s a limit which we can tolerate and we cannot accept this. We want responsible managers, we are contributing to the capital infrastructure. We want absolute adherence to financial guidelines, we want all money that is given to be utilized in improvement of school infrastructure”
The minister has reminded school managements that children’s’ interest and education has to be paramount. There are 226 thousand students in the school system.