A Canberra child-care operator who received $1.6 million in federal subsidies, despite not being able to prove it had a single child in its care, has been put our of business for good, according to the ACT government.
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Long Life Family Day Care was shut down in October 2015 after ACT education authorities had been unable, despite extensive checks and questions, to confirm there were any children under the company's care.
But the ACT Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal has been told that in the 16 months it was in business, Long Life, run by former Education Directorate staffer Ruben Majok Aleer Aguer, was paid more than $1.6 million in Commonwealth child care subsidies, despite not being able to prove his claims that he employed educators and other staff.
Mr Aguer, a Sudanese refugee, had been given considerable leeway by Education Directorate officials to prove he was really running a family daycare business because they were keen for "particular groups" to be providing family day care, the tribunal was told.
By late November 2014, Long Life had been "operating" a care service for six months, saying it was employing 10 educators who cared for more than 30 children.
But the Education Directorate had seen no evidence of any staff, or any children, and nor had it properly inspected a principal office or the premises of any carer.
It took almost another 12 months, until October 2015, before the directorate's patience ran out and it put Long Life out of business for six months. Then Mr Aguer mounted a legal challenge to the decision.
But the tribunal was not impressed with Mr Aguer's evidence, finding it unreliable, or his failure, on multiple occasions, to produce documents that he claimed to be in his possession.
But despite the large sums of money that changed hands and Long Life's inability to prove it was running a child care business, no allegations of misuse of funds had been put to Mr Aguer during the tribunal process.
The tribunal found Long Life, which in its short life had moved its offices around north Canberra, had breached its service approval agreements as well as committing multiple breaches of the Education and Care Services National Law.
"Given the near-complete lack of evidence of employment or independent contractor records before the tribunal, I am not satisfied that any of the persons claimed to be employed or engaged by the applicant as educators were in fact so employed or engaged," tribunal senior member Heidi Robinson noted in her judgement.
The tribunal varied the Education Directorate's six-month suspension of Long Life to 12 months, which will expire on October 20 and Mr Aguer said on Monday he planned to re-open his business.
But an Education Directorate spokesman said Long Life no longer had approval to operate at all.
"Long Life Family Day Care approval was cancelled and the cancellation took effect on 19 August 2016," the spokesman said.
