Education Minister Anthony Garcia yesterday defended Ministry of Education employees and members of the Gate Task Force Committee, saying they were not responsible for leaking the 70-page report to the media.
Hinting that the leak would have come through high-ranking officials, Garcia yesterday stopped short of confirming it had been leaked by a member of the Cabinet.
“Persons who occupy positions of trust must accept the positions in which they find themselves and act with that element of trust at all times,” Garcia said at a press conference at the ministry.
Pressed further about the leak, Garcia added: “The leak did not come from any member of the Task Force nor did it come from the Ministry of Education.”
On Monday, Garcia confirmed a copy of the report was presented to each Cabinet minister during last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. Recommendations from the report later appeared in the media on the weekend.
He said the leak was a “great source of concern for us,” adding he was saddened over how the issue was being played out in public. He assured that the recommendations contained in the report remained only that, and Government would announce within the next week-and-a-half what the final decision would be.
Garcia also warned those involved in selling textbooks for the school programme to desist or face the full brunt of the law.
Holding a textbook bought from an Arima bookseller, Garcia said there had been attempts to “disguise the book before selling it to the unsuspecting public.”
He ripped off a plain sheet of paper which had been glued onto the book’s inside cover to hide the ministry’s warning that it was not to be sold but declined to say if the text contained a school stamp.
He said an investigation had been launched by the Ministry of National Security and his ministry's Legal Department.