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A financial administrator at a secondary school, who embezzled more than BD5,600 in Education Ministry funds, has been sentenced to three years in prison.
The defendant, the head of financial affairs at a school in Riffa, was convicted of six charges relating to embezzlement, falsifying data and forging documents.
The High Criminal Court also sentenced two expatraite shop clerks, who the 42-year-old Bahraini had enlisted to help him steal school funds, to a year in prison each.
The two drivers, a Pakistani and a Bangladeshi, were both charged with aiding and abetting the main defendant by supplying him with bogus invoices to help pull off his heist.
Judges ordered the Bahraini to return BD5,448 to the school and fined him an additional BD5,448, while both expats were ordered to return BD1,661 and fined them an additional BD1,661.
The main suspect was found guilty of exploiting his position by authorising payments to acquire supplies for the school and maintain the campus, which went into his pocket instead.
Prosecutors accused him of altering, falsifying and forging receipts and invoices, then submitting them in the ministry’s financial database with knowledge of their invalidity.
He reportedly directed one of his expat accomplices 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.
The two other defendants confessed to fabricating invoices and handing them over to their employee upon his request, allowing the main suspect to undeservedly obtain public funds.
The man was able to execute his scheme thanks to their co-operation, the prosecution stated, and the embezzlement took place over the course of five years, from 2019 to 2024.
The GDN earlier reported that the financial discrepancy was uncovered by Education Ministry accountants during a periodical audit of all educational institutions under its purview.
An internal investigation was launched into the school and invoices linked to companies that were doing business with a school were uncovered – all connected to, and signed off on, by the defendant.
Phantom invoices, along with redundant and cancelled receipts, were identified, with contradictions in the amounts paid out and the amounts received by the businesses.
The case was then investigated by the Financial Crimes and Money Laundering Prosecution and the National Audit Office.
Reports were created to check if proper contracting procedures between the school and external entities were followed and to determine the extent of the financial damage caused to the school.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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