A $20 mil­lion Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (GATE) fraud has al­leged­ly been dis­cov­ered at the School of Busi­ness and Com­put­er Sci­ences (SBCS) ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion. The shock­ing rev­e­la­tion was de­tect­ed in April 2010, fol­low­ing a re­view of the find­ings of an au­dit con­duct­ed by the Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion dur­ing the pe­ri­od March 2008 to 2010. The in­sti­tu­tion, which has cam­pus­es in Champs Fleurs, Trinci­ty, Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do, is owned by founder and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Robin Maraj. To­mor­row the in­sti­tu­tion will cel­e­brate its 25th an­niver­sary, since its in­cep­tion in 1987. The au­dit al­leged­ly ques­tioned cer­tain prac­tices adopt­ed by the in­sti­tu­tion and the le­git­i­ma­cy of mil­lions of dol­lars in tu­ition claims for stu­dent fund­ing. The min­istry is de­mand­ing that Maraj re­im­burse tu­ition fund­ing to­talling $20,215,254.65. The fig­ure rep­re­sents a re­vised sum that orig­i­nal­ly was list­ed at $41,065,225.52. Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that fol­low­ing the find­ings the in­sti­tu­tion sub­mit­ted ad­di­tion­al ev­i­dence that was not pro­duced at the time of the au­dit. The records were re­viewed by the au­di­tors and the sum, which was re­vised on two oc­ca­sions, re­mains out­stand­ing to date. Maraj, in 2004, had tak­en is­sue with his in­sti­tute be­ing ex­clud­ed from the Dol­lar-For-Dol­lar Pro­gramme, claim­ing that many stu­dents were de­prived from ac­cess­ing ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion be­cause they were un­able to af­ford tu­ition fees. The in­sti­tu­tion, how­ev­er, was among the list of ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tutes that met the qual­i­fy­ing ac­cred­i­ta­tion sta­tus for GATE fund­ing im­ple­ment­ed lat­er that year. It was by let­ter dat­ed April 15, 2010, se­nior au­di­tor Di­anne Al­leyne at­tached to the Fund­ing and Grants Ad­min­is­tra­tion Di­vi­sion wrote to Maraj in­form­ing him of the find­ings of the au­dit.

Of­fi­cial doc­u­ments ob­tained by Sun­day Guardian re­vealed that the au­dit was con­duct­ed in three stages:

• The in­ter­nal check was con­clud­ed at the head of­fice pri­or to the phys­i­cal "on site" ex­am­i­na­tion of records,

• The "on site" vis­it and ex­am­i­na­tion of records by the au­dit teams,

• The analy­sis at head of­fice of the da­ta re­trieved on site at the in­sti­tu­tion,

Al­leyne fur­ther not­ed that fail­ure by the in­sti­tu­tion to keep prop­er ac­count­ing and at­ten­dance records caused a de­lay and posed a chal­lenge for the au­di­tors.

The fol­low­ing short­com­ings were not­ed at the in­sti­tu­tion:

• Fail­ure of the in­sti­tu­tion to pre­pare the quar­ter­ly rec­on­cil­i­a­tion state­ment which is a re­quire­ment of the Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing, signed be­tween the in­sti­tu­tion and the min­istry,

• Fail­ure of the in­sti­tu­tion to main­tain prop­er at­ten­dance records as out­lined in the agree­ment,

• The in­abil­i­ty of the in­sti­tu­tion's staff to pro­vide re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion on a time­ly ba­sis which in­clud­ed a de­lay in pro­duc­ing the stu­dent re­sult list­ings for each de­gree pro­gramme.

The find­ings al­so re­vealed that the in­sti­tu­tion failed to keep ad­e­quate at­ten­dance records for all pro­grammes. Fur­ther prob­ing re­vealed that the min­istry was forced to give a di­rec­tive to stop the dis­tri­b­u­tion of cheques un­til the au­dit was con­clud­ed, af­ter it was dis­cov­ered that the in­sti­tu­tion did not re­im­burse monies paid to most of the stu­dents whose names ap­peared on the list for the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2005/2006. The ob­ser­va­tion of the non-con­for­mi­ties, Sun­day Guardian learnt, led to the au­di­tors prepar­ing a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion state­ment for re­im­burse­ments to stu­dents who pur­sued cours­es dur­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2005/2006 and ul­ti­mate­ly with­drew or dropped out at the time the at­ten­dance records were ex­am­ined by the au­di­tors. In an­oth­er let­ter to Maraj on Sep­tem­ber 5, 2011, Al­leyne not­ed that the find­ings of the au­dit were re­viewed and most of the at­ten­dance reg­is­ters sub­mit­ted did not con­tribute to any ma­jor changes but in fact sup­port­ed the po­si­tion of the au­dit. It was al­so not­ed that the in­sti­tu­tion failed to com­ply with the au­di­tors' re­quest to pro­vide the min­istry with re­sults to sup­port each course the stu­dents were reg­is­tered for dur­ing their pe­ri­od of study at the in­sti­tu­tion, es­pe­cial­ly re­lat­ing to stu­dents pur­su­ing that As­so­ci­a­tion of Busi­ness Ex­ec­u­tive Pro­gramme. Al­leyne fur­ther stat­ed to Maraj: "The GATE pol­i­cy states that full-time or part-time pro­grammes of less than two years du­ra­tion-no ad­di­tion­al pay­ment on be­half of stu­dents who con­tin­ue be­yond the nor­mal du­ra­tion." A re­im­burse­ment, Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands, was al­so re­quest­ed for stu­dents who re­ceived more than one pay­ment for these pro­grammes.

The in­sti­tu­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tions fur­ther re­vealed, is al­so be­ing or­dered to re­im­burse the min­istry for tu­ition fund­ing re­lat­ing to sev­er­al pro­grammes of study at the fol­low­ing for­eign in­sti­tu­tions:

• Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don-$3,815,260

• Uni­ver­si­ty of Sun­der­land-$758,597.50

• Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter-$346,139.80

• Uni­ver­si­ty of Green­wich-$102,448

• Her­riot-Watt Uni­ver­si­ty-$936,865

• As­so­ci­a­tion of Busi­ness Ex­ec­u­tives-$5,482,337.71

• The As­so­ci­a­tion of Char­tered Cer­ti­fied Ac­coun­tants-$1,497,842.33

• Char­tered In­sti­tute of Mar­ket­ing-$577,565

• Char­tered In­sti­tute of Pur­chas­ing and Sup­ply-$644,079

• ED Ex­cel In­ter­na­tion­al-$543,730

• City and Guilds-$1,235,593

Find­ings showed that al­though a num­ber of stu­dents with­drew or dropped out from the pro­grammes, tu­ition claims were sub­mit­ted to the min­istry for fund­ing. In some in­stances in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed stu­dents did not pur­sue any course. In ad­di­tion, Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands the in­sti­tu­tion is al­so be­ing or­dered to re­fund the sum of $3,274,797.31 that was not re­im­bursed to stu­dents pur­su­ing cours­es dur­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2005/2006. The mat­ter is ex­pect­ed to come up for hear­ing on March 1 at the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain.

Maraj: Min­istry in breach of agree­ment

But even as the mil­lions of dol­lars in tu­ition fund­ing re­main out­stand­ing and un­ac­count­ed for, Maraj has tak­en the min­istry to task for the al­leged breach of the 2009 agree­ment be­tween them and his in­sti­tu­tion. In a claim for dam­ages filed on Jan­u­ary 10, Maraj is claim­ing that the min­istry is in breach of the De­cem­ber 1 agree­ment reached be­tween his at­tor­neys and min­istry of­fi­cials that was aimed at re­solv­ing the is­sue. Maraj stat­ed his at­tor­neys by let­ter dat­ed De­cem­ber 2, wrote to the min­istry and en­closed a draft ar­bi­tra­tion re­lat­ing to the re­fund of $20,215,254.65. Eleven days lat­er, Maraj stat­ed the min­istry re­spond­ed, stat­ing: "The min­istry is not in­ter­est­ed in pur­su­ing any fur­ther al­ter­na­tive dis­pute res­o­lu­tion mea­sures."

Maraj is claim­ing that the min­istry has failed or re­fused to:

• In breach of the 2009 agree­ment to pay the claimant the sum of $27,996,098.32 due to the claimant for the un­paid ap­pli­ca­tions un­der the 2009 agree­ment or any part there­of,

• To pay the claimant the sum of $5,118,250 or any part there­of due to the claimant un­der the im­plied con­tract,

• In breach of the De­cem­ber 2011 agree­ment to pay the claimant the sum of $8, 911,295 which it agreed to pay there­un­der by De­cem­ber 15, 2011 or any part there­of.

The claim states that Maraj ac­cept­ed the min­istry's re­pu­di­a­tion of the De­cem­ber 2011 agree­ment in a let­ter writ­ten on be­half of his at­tor­neys on De­cem­ber 19.

Maraj is now seek­ing the fol­low­ing dam­ages:

• The sum of $8,911,295 for dam­ages for breach of the De­cem­ber 2011 agree­ment,

• The sum $19,084,794.32 (be­ing the sum of $27,996,089.32 less the sum of $8,911,295.00) un­der the 2009 agree­ment,

• Al­ter­na­tive­ly to the re­lief claimed in (a) and (b) im­me­di­ate­ly above, the sum of $27,996,089.32 un­der the 2009 agree­ment,

• The sum of $5,118,250 un­der the im­plied con­tracts,

• Costs,

• In­ter­est on the afore­said sums pur­suant to Sec­tion: 25 of the Supreme Court of Ju­di­ca­ture Act at such rate and for such pe­ri­od as the court deem just and or oth­er re­lief as to the court may deem just.

Con­tact­ed by Sun­day Guardian for com­ment on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Maraj said: "At this point I do not wish to com­ment on the mat­ter." Sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Fazal Karim up to late yes­ter­day proved fu­tile.