Four people, including a ministry employee, will go on trial for allegedly embezzling public funds, falsifying and altering data in the ministry’s electronic system, as well as forging private documents and using them unlawfully.
It follows internal investigations launched by the Education Ministry, which resulted in officials uncovering fraudulent invoices linked to companies that were allegedly doing business with a school, the Public Prosecution said in a statement yesterday.
The probe team concluded that the main suspect – the ministry employee, whose age and nationality were not disclosed – abused his position as administrative and financial affairs head to manipulate the ministry’s database and falsify invoices.
A complaint was filed with the Financial Crimes and Money Laundering Prosecution, which also launched its own investigation.
Specialists from the National Audit Office were assigned to prepare a report to determine whether proper contracting procedures between the school and external entities had been followed.
They also assessed the financial damage caused to the school, and identified those responsible for the alleged violations and forgery in the case documents. Permission was also granted to lift banking secrecy on related accounts.
These procedures revealed the existence of fabricated invoices and documents attributed to commercial institutions dealing with the school, resulting in payments being made from the school’s budget.
Additionally, phantom invoices and cancelled ones were identified. These were amounts that were never collected by the supposed companies, contrary to what was recorded in the school’s electronic financial system.
The suspects, including three Asians, were interrogated and confronted with the evidence.
The ministry employee told the Public Prosecution that he had directed one of the Asian defendants to submit false invoices to withdraw funds from the school’s budget, and also admitted to directly contracting with a company owned by his wife.
Two other defendants confessed to fabricating invoices and handing them over to the employee upon his request.
The four individuals will go on trial at the High Criminal Court on September 22.
nader@gdnmedia.bh
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