NSW:Schools bureaucrat in $376,000 rort: ICAC

AAP General News (Australia)
08-22-2011
NSW:Schools bureaucrat in $376,000 rort: ICAC

SYDNEY, Aug 22 AAP - A former NSW education department bureaucrat allegedly recruited
staff from a company, of which he was a director and shareholder, as part of a $376,000
rort, a NSW corruption inquiry has heard.

David Johnson worked as a project manager for the NSW Department of Education and Training
(DET) between November 2007 and April 2009 and is said to have exploited a level of autonomy
in his job for financial gain.

The first day of an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry in Sydney
has heard that between January and July 2008 Mr Johnson recruited five contractors to
work on the DET's Smart 2 project, a computer program that helped analyse school exam
results.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Michael Fordham, said the five contractors interviewed
and recommended for employment by Mr Johnson were all employees of or directly associated
with Ogawie Pty Ltd, a company for which Mr Johnson was a director and shareholder.

Mr Johnson is also alleged to have recommended that another company, Catalina IT, be
employed to carry out a project review for which the DET was later invoiced for more than
$68,000.

Catalina was an intermediary in a chain of transactions from which Ogawie ended up
with tens of thousands of dollars, while the web designer who actually did the work was
only paid $2,450, the ICAC was told.

"Mr Johnson made no declaration to the DET about his alleged conflict of interest or
of his involvement with Ogawie," Mr Fordham said.

"Mr Johnson exploited the system of contractor retention in order to profit from a
series of undisclosed conflicts of interest.

"The net benefit derived by Ogawie appears to have been $376,834."

In a further allegation, Mr Fordham said that in August 2008 Mr Johnson diverted DET
cash to pay computer programmers to develop an application which Ogawie intended to sell
back to the department.

"The evidence will suggest that Mr Johnson took advantage of the autonomy that went
with his position as a project manager to engage in three forms of corrupt conduct," Mr
Fordham said.

The ICAC inquiry would examine how Mr Johnson's alleged corrupt conduct went undetected
at the time and what the DET and other public authorities had done to minimise the risk
of it happening again, he said.

AAP mdg/wjf/it/de

KEYWORD: ICAC JOHNSON

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