An Islamic school in Sydney’s southwest, ordered to pay back $9 million of public funding, denies it has done anything wrong.
NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli has written to the Malek Fahd Islamic School in Greenacre ordering it to repay the funds after a random audit found it was operating for a profit.
News Ltd has reported that the school had transferred the funds to the Federation of Islamic Councils, which had been charging Malek Fahd millions of dollars in “management fees” for non-existent services and inflated rents.
But in a statement released on Tuesday night, the school’s principal, Intaj Ali, denied any wrongdoing.
“Malek Fahd School disagrees with the finding (by Mr Piccoli) that the school is operating for profit within the meaning of s21A of the NSW Education Act 1990 and intends to challenge this decision,” Dr Ali said.
“The school will take the appropriate steps to have this decision reviewed and is confident that ultimately the correct outcome will be achieved.”
Dr Ali said the school’s focus remained on delivering quality education for its students and he would work with state and federal authorities to resolve the issue.
Earlier, federal School Education Minister Peter Garrett said the random audit did not find that Malek Fahd had breached commonwealth funding guidelines.
But Mr Garrett told reporters in Canberra that he was “not satisfied that all of the issues surrounding this school have yet been fully resolved”.
Malek Fahd has more than 2000 students, from kindergarten up to year 12.
On its website it states that almost all of its students speak a language other than English and are from “low socio-economic backgrounds”.
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