Officials terminated without benefits
The ministry of education, based on RCSC’s order, terminated on July 7 Rinzin Pam of the the special education unit, Rajman Tamang of the education monitoring division, Thinley Wangmo of the scouts and cultural section of the department of youth, Namgyel Tshering, former district education officer (DEO) of Wangdue, Tshering Dorji, former ADEO, Ugyen Dema, office assistant of Wangdue, and Karma Dendup, former DEO of Samtse.
They were found guilty of forgery, misuse of funds, tampering with do*****ents and official misconduct during the multigrade workshop and non-formal education workshops conducted between 2005 and 2006. They had siphoned amounts from Nu 21,900 to Nu 126,000 and were made to refund the same.
RUB also terminated two lecturers of NIE in Paro, Kesang K D Yeshey and Lopon Phurba.
All the officials were convicted both by the high court and lower courts for an offence of misdemeanour and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 12 months to 19 months. However, they were given the option to pay thrimthue in lieu of imprisonment.
According to an MoE’s spokesperson, RCSC’s decision to terminate them without benefits was too harsh and unfair, since MoE had punished them adequately after surfacing the “scam” involving millions of ngultrums from the expanded education programme fund. “Some were suspended for months, promotions and yearly salary increment were withheld for a period of one year to four years, depending on the nature of their crime,” said an education official. Opportunities like training, study tour, or travel outside the country were also stopped.
The scam surfaced when the royal audit authority conducted their normal auditing in 2006 for the July 2003 to June 2006 period.
The programme was instituted to enhance non-formal education in the dzongkhags. The programme’s fund was reportedly siphoned between 2003 and 2005 and, in a few instances in 2006, mostly by creating ‘ghost employees’.
The education officials had manipulated and claimed bills and TA/DA for workshops organised for head teachers and community leaders.
