7 Sep 2015

Farm training centre must pay back $7.5m

9:02 pm on 7 September 2015

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating an agricultural training centre that has been told to repay $7.5 million of government money.

The Tertiary Education Commission said the Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre has delivered less education than it was paid for, and now it must pay the money back.

The Commission said it was tipped off about Taratahi, which is based near Masterton, in August last year. It found problems including the centre enrolling its own staff in a course where little teaching actually happened.

The training centre said the problems were caused by administrative processes and systems.

Last year, the Commission forced the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki and Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi to repay millions of dollars each, because students had done less work than required.

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