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The Directorate of Inspection and Audit of the Education Ministry found widespread financial and administrative irregularities at Monipur School and College in the capital.
The directorate in its probe detected various types of irregularities including enjoying illegal benefits by the members of the governing body of the institute and dodging the government a huge amount of VAT and tax.
The probe also found unnecessary and unplanned spending of money by the authorities of the non-government school.
Prof Waliullah Md Azmatgir, director of the directorate, said they have already submitted a report to the ministry regarding irregularities at the Monipur High School and College and the ministry will take necessary measures in this regard.
Copies of the report were also sent to the director general of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education and the school authorities, he added
A four-member investigation team of the directorate conducted the investigation during mid-2022. It scrutinised and analysed all the records and found irregularities involving more than Tk 100 crore at the school and college.
The 11-page report said the school principal Farhad Hossain went into retirement on July 2, 2020, but the school’s governing body appointed him as principal again on a contractual basis. Such an extension is a breach of law.
The school is an MPO-listed institution but now there is an attempt to run all the activities of the institution by forming a trust without the approval of the government.
Apart from the main campus, the school and college authority established five more campuses without the approval of the education ministry. The campuses are located at Shewrapara, Ibrahimpur and Rupnagar of Mirpur.
The report said coaching centres mushroomed in buildings adjacent to the campuses of the school making the localities into a hub of ‘education business’.
The probe found Tk 1.54 crore was spent as honorarium of the president, member and member secretary of the governing body between 2016 and 2022 but no tax was deducted at source as per income tax law depriving the government of Tk 15.41 lakh.
Besides, the Governing Body Regulations 2009 does not prescribe any remuneration for the members of the body, the report added. As there is no provision for taking honorarium by the members, the directorate recommended they should return the entire amount they took as honorarium to the school fund.
The authorities paid the teachers Tk 20.90 crore as an honorarium for holding extra classes between 2015 and 2021 but no tax was paid against their honorarium that deprived the government Tk 2.9 crore, said the report adding that they showed expenditure over special classes during Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-2021 session.
The school and college authorities have evaded taxes and VAT worth Tk 35.3 crore between 2015 and 2022, the report added.
Tk 3 crore was collected from the students as a magazine fee in six years but no magazine was published.
Tk 2.77 lakh was spent on transferring a multimedia projector to a multimedia classroom which the probe panel found illegal.
The school authorities paid bills of around Tk 400 crore for various types of several kinds of work in seven years.
After scrutinising the audit report of Hossain Delwar & Co, appointed by Monipur High School and College, it was found Tk 314.7 crore has been paid to various suppliers and contractors from 2015 to January 31, 2022.
Against this payment, only Tk 1.24 crore VAT was paid to the government. But according to the notification issued by the National Board of Revenue (NBR), the VAT is supposed to be Tk 23.51 crore. So, the remaining Tk 22.27 crore VAT must be deposited in the government treasury, said the report
Meanwhile, the probe team found evidence of massive irregularities in the repair and painting of the school’s Ibrahimpur campus.
On December 26, 2021, Ekulia Enterprise was assigned to do the job at a cost of Tk 1.17 crore as the lowest bidder and the company got the entire payment within seven days of receiving the work order.
The Ibrahimpur campus is a very big area and it is not possible to build, repair and paint the entire campus in six days, said the report casting doubt on whether any work was done at all.
The scrutiny found Ekulia Enterprise is an import-export company and a class III contractor and had no experience of doing such work.
Scrutinising the bill vouchers for the fiscal years 2015-16 to 2021-22, it also found that a total of Tk 47.21 crore bills have been paid to the contractors – Zara Enterprise, Lara Enterprise, Tauhid Developers and Builders Limited, Ocean Information System and Monir Decorator.
However, an income tax of Tk 10.52 crore has not been paid to the government against these bills. The investigation committee recommended realising the entire amount of income tax be from companies and depositing it in the treasury.
After verifying the bills, vouchers and statements of Monipur High School and College for the year 2018, the inspection team found that a total bill of Tk 31.45 crore was given to Lara enterprise for the construction of the principal’s residence and girl’s hostel.
Of the amount, Tk 4 crores have been spent on the construction of the principal’s residence and Tk 27.45 crores for the girl’s hostel. The probe panel found only 13 residents at the expensive hostel with the capacity to accommodate 500 students.
The panel said a huge amount of money has been wasted by constructing the hostel without any feasibility study.
Talking to The Business Post, the school principal, Farhad Hossain, said, “I am yet to receive the copy of the report. After receiving it, we will definitely get a certain time to reply and we will respond within that time.”
“There were some problems at the school but those have already been resolved,” he said declining to speak further.
