Audit reports not out: Principal

 By GABRIEL LAHOC

TWO out of three audits carried out on the finances of Ialibu Secondary School have been completed but are yet to be released, according to principal Elias Landea.

The first two audits were sanctioned by the Department of Education and the Southern Highlands provincial government.

The third was sanctioned by Prime Minister and Ialibu-Pangia MP Peter O’Neill. 

It covered Ialibu Secondary School and Pangia High School. It is yet to be completed.

Landea was responding to concerns raised by parents and teachers about the use of funds at the school.

The four parents and two teachers who spoke out on the condition of anonymity provided invoices and bank documents of a K5000 payment authorised by the principal and the board to a female teacher who claimed her house was broken into and her belongings stolen.

They said it was improper for a teacher to be compensated from school funds without carrying out investigations.

“It was a criminal matter which should be dealt with by police, they said.  But Langea however said there was nothing sinister and nothing to hide.

“Our financial reports have been given and the Southern Highlands sanctioned audit is done.

 “The education department audit is done and but it is only the PM’s sanctioned audits that are yet to be completed,” Landea said.

“Yes the teacher’s house was ransacked during the Christmas break despite it being under the caretaker’s watch, who was appointed by the school.  So the school had to pay her K5000. There is no misuse of school funds.”

Meanwhile, Landea said the 2015 education subsidy was yet to be received. He said 80 out of  the 174 Grade 12 students who sat for exams last year, had been selected into tertiary institutions. 

“We hope to improve academically and pass out more students successfully,” he said.

There are other schools in the country who have raise similar concerns.