The CCAC once again detected a case where a local education centre and nearly 170 residents allegedly defrauded subsidies from the Continuing Education Development Plan, which involved over MOP1 million.

In 2020, upon receiving a report, the CCAC carried out an in-depth investigation, where it found that a person-in-charge and a staff member of the education centre involved, through offering cash rebates or free enrolment in other courses between 2016 and 2019, attracted nearly 170 Macao residents to apply to the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (currently the Education and Youth Development Bureau) for the Continuing Education Development Plan and apply for the subsidised courses it launched. However, the relevant courses were never started and the students, without attending the courses, could receive cash rebates amounting to a half of the subsidies for the courses paid by the centre or take other courses held by the centre for free. Meanwhile, the person-in-charge and the staff member of the centre reported untrue attendance records to the bureau and colluded with the instructors and students to forge attendance records. Eventually, the relevant subsidies were granted.

The suspects involved have allegedly committed fraud, document forgery, use of someone else’s identification document and computer forgery. The case has been referred to the Public Prosecutions Office for follow-up.

The CCAC stated that although the relevant department has already taken measures to eradicate the problems concerning false enrollment of courses, citizens should still abide by the law when applying for any kind of government subsidies in order not to fall foul of the law out of greed.