Thursday 13th November 2014
Senior Victorian education department officials bought shares in and took jobs with the company given a $60 million contract to deliver the failed Ultranet schools IT project.
The revelations will re-ignite questions over the former Labor government’s handling of the project – dumped last year by the Coalition after its cost blew out to $180 million – and come as Victoria’s anti-corruption agency continues its probe of the education department.
The shares scandal was uncovered by a secret 2010 internal education department inquiry which revealed its general manager, John Allman, had bought shares in CSG Limited before it was announced winner of the Ultranet contract in July 2009.
The internal inquiry also found two of the department’s then regional directors, Wayne Craig and Ron Lake, purchased 11,289 and 1112 CSG shares respectively after it was awarded the Ultranet contract.