Former National Sports Council Clerk Faces 5-Year Sentence for $1M Embezzlement

Last week, a former accounting clerk attached to the National Sports Council, pleaded guilty to stealing over one million dollars from the council.  Ivan Ayuso was given a sentence indication of up to five years which will be handed down later this month.  The court of public opinion has been asking whether Ayuso will be required to pay back the money, but no such ruling has been made.  It is a case of embezzlement that occurred between August 2013 and August 2016, when Ayuso was able to swindle one million, forty thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven dollars and sixty-seven cents ($1,040,997.67) from government funds.  According to our news archives, Patrick Faber was the substantive minister of sports; a fact he says he does not recall.

Patrick Faber, Area Representative, Collet: “I am not sure that I was the minister at the time. I would have to go back and check the record because I remember the matters being referred to me but you remember I always had a minister of state and my instruction from the Prime Minister at the time was to give the ministers of state their full control. But ultimately when things are gazetted and portfolios are issued it is the minister who is, the minister not the minister of state, who is to take responsibility but I’ve not had a chance. This has been years ago if you remember so I have not had a chance to catch up on what has happened.”

Troy Gabb, Host, The Morning Show: “It came up recently because he pleaded guilty.” 

Patrick Faber, Area Representative, Collet: “But just to be clear certainly I had no hand in any of that. One of the things I pride myself in they can say a lot of things about me but the corruption is not one of those things and I feel that in the time that I was Minister of Education that I acquitted myself very professionally as a steward of the government, leader in the government very professionally every opportunity I got and I take very big pride in that record.”

Ayuso is currently on remand until sentencing on October 19.