A South Australian corruption investigation has found more than $1 million of cash grants meant to help businesses stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic were claimed fraudulently.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) unearthed flaws in the grant system, where officials were left unable to access the Australian Tax Office files to verify claims made by businesses.
The grant system was designed to use a three-stage assessment process to determine eligibility.
This included measuring the annual turnover of businesses and their payroll.
However, the staff processing the claims were unable to access Australian Tax Office records, meaning they had to rely on businesses’ registration or licencing documents instead.
As the grant scheme went on, senior staff in the public institutions began to notice that some applicants had been “gaming the process”.
Some statements submitted for approval were alleged to have been “clearly forged”.
An agreement was reached with the ATO in 2022 to allow public institutions access to tax records, which then revealed the scale of the alleged fraud.
Staff at some institutions had been tasked with processing applications within just 14 days.
No fault was found with the staff at these institutions.
The ICAC report has been presented to police to follow up on allegations of fraud.
“It’s a situation where people take things that don’t belong to them, that inevitably means somebody else misses out,” Anne Moeller chief executive of the South Australian branch of the Australian Hotels Association, said.
“For a sector that really bore the brunt of Covid and the restrictions and closures, that’s really disappointing”.
