The Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) has already received more than 30 complaints about the abuse of Government’s educational grants in 2018.

Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption manager corruption prevention Kolora Naliva said last year they received more than 20 complaints about the abuse of education grants.

“We still continue to receive complaints about this,” Ms Naliva said.

“We have tried to strengthen awareness sessions with schools, management and teachers so that they know and become aware that abuse of educational grants is not allowed.

“We are continuing with the awareness in order to instill best practices in place so that they are not found guilty or being investigated for the abuse of educational grants.”

She said the complaints that FICAC received had been from all over Fiji.

“One instance of abuse is when schools receive Government grant its intended for the benefit of the school like maintenance,” she said.

“In some cases this is not happening.

“The money is used for something else.

“There is a range of ways where money is abused.”

She said the school managers needed to be good stewards of the money disbursed for the school.

“My advice to the school managers that if they are the recipients of Government grants then they should create a separate account for it and not put it together with the same school’s account,” Ms Naliva said.

“They should implement best practices because this money is not for their personal use. It is given to them for a purpose.”

Ms Naliva said the FICAC team would be in the North for a week to carry out corruption prevention training programmes and workshops for the public sector, private sector, Government ministries and communities.

The team would be returning to Suva on Saturday.

Edited by Rusiate Mataika

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