Education sector employees, including teachers, arrested in Beira over 15 million meticais embezzlement

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Education sector employees, including teachers, arrested in Beira over 15 million meticais embezzlement

3:32 CAT | 14 Jan 2021

Photo. O País

Seven education sector employees, including teachers, have been detained in the city of Beira, Sofala, accused of involvement, along with 13 others still at large, in embezzling about 15 million meticais [US$200,745].

The scheme involved 20 employees at the Matadouro and Josina Machel secondary schools, who allegedly ordered the payment of unearned wages and bonuses through the State Financial Administration System (SISTAFE) from September and December of last year.

Administrative employees allegedly offered teachers the possibility of accessing SISTAFE and channelling monthly amounts to their salary accounts. Four months later, the amounts received varied from 350,000 to one million meticais per beneficiary.

One of the detained teachers, from the Matadouro Secondary School, confessed to the crime. “In addition to being a teacher, I was an administrative officer. I offered my colleagues the opportunity to benefit and they accepted. Between September and December I benefited by 180,000 meticais [US$2,408].”

The police say that the beneficiaries paid part of the amounts they received to the administrative staff as their ‘cut’. Neither party has commented further on this aspect yet.

“With the 350,000 meticais [around US$4,684) that I received over four months, I rehabilitated my house and built a fence wall. I have nothing to add,” one of the detainees, a teacher from Josina Machel High School, said.

The illicit payments started the first month the wage payment system was decentralised from provincial to district level. The fraudulent operation was discovered by Zinho Augusto, a technician in the sector, when he drew up a balance sheet of monthly expenses for each school in Beira.

“When I opened the system earlier this month, to draw up a balance sheet, I was surprised by the amount spent by Josina Machel Secondary School. In a single month, they had spent more than two million meticais. That is a lot of money in bonuses for a school with about 30 teachers,” Augusto said.

Augusto went on to explain that, the undue spending having aroused attention, “we cross-checked other schools and found that at least one more, Matadouro, was involved in the same scheme”, that is, showed signs of embezzlement from the public purse. “We alerted the authorities.”

At the moment, efforts are underway to locate the other 13 people allegedly involved in the diversion of the 15 million meticais.

By Francisco Raiva

Source: O País