Multi-million dollar penny-bank fraud at No. 48 Primary School

Nov 26, 2012 News

A massive school penny- bank embezzlement scheme is reportedly unfolding at a Corentyne coast primary school, and angry parents are demanding that the teacher implicated in the scam, pay back over $3M which Grade 6 pupils invested.
The teacher has been sent on leave.
Red flags were raised a few weeks ago after the children did not receive their savings and bank books as had been promised.
Parents who raised queries received no satisfactory answers.
Kaieteur News was informed that officials from the Region 6 Department of Education visited the school on Friday and parents are accusing these officials of putting a lid over the issue.
One parent said that her child was supposed to collect $59,000 in savings. She demanded the bank book from the teacher.
She noted her son started to save money since he was in Grade 2 and was supposed to collect his savings on his graduation day two Fridays ago.
Kaieteur News understands that at least two other students of the 26 involved had over $700,000. A teacher is put in charge of the collection and supervises the entire process. Kaieteur News was told that the teacher can be the signatory to the bank account in which the money has been deposited and has complete access to the cash.
“She was the banking teacher and nobody checked on her, and now when the children supposed to get their money, they can’t give account if the monies were being banked or not”, said one parent.
“The Ministry [of Education] promised us that we will get our money but that we will have to hold on”.
Another irate parent whose child is supposed to collect $78,000, said, “I do not know what Miss [name of teacher] did with the students’ money.
But several times, I asked for the money—up to graduation day I asked—she said we will get the money and eventually I did not hear back anything until I heard she was on leave and booked ticket to leave the country and all the ledgers in the school for the children’s names to get their money was canceled and she held up the kids’ bank books before school close.
“I do not know what is going on! I do not know if we will get robbed because I heard she is leaving the country on December 2. This is unfair…I went to school and did penny- banking and this never happened”. The teacher, the parent said, should not be allowed to continue in the system.
Another parent said that his daughter’s bank book “has a lot of scratches”. His daughter was supposed to receive over $868,000. Meanwhile, an Education official in Region 6 stated that apparently it was discovered that the teacher in question “drew out the money over a period of time.
The source went on to say that she has a 10-year U.S. visa and “pulled out the money with the intention to leave the country”.
The individual is questioning what has happened to the children’s interest that has accumulated, too, since nothing is being mentioned about that.
“What has happened to the children’s interest payments that have built up over a period of time”? They believe that the Ministry of Education should close down all the School Cooperative Societies, formerly referred to as the School Thrift Society, since there is a lot of rampant corruption and thieving by numerous educators in the various primary schools which practice the system of school co-ops.
A high- level team of the Ministry of Education did visit the school on Friday last and held a closed- door meeting with the teacher in question as well as the Head teacher.
According to a source, the teacher promised the officials to “put back” some of the money by late Friday. When Kaieteur News contacted her yesterday, the teacher refuted the allegations.
Efforts to contact State Audit at the Regional Democratic Council in Berbice as well as the Regional Education Officer in the region proved futile.

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Multi-million dollar penny-bank fraud at No. 48 Primary School

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