The Pensioner and Carer Concession Scheme travel scheme was set up through the NT Health Department to give pensioners and carers travel concessions.
The department has spent more than three years trying to figure out how much went missing as a result of registered travel agents rorting the troubled scheme.
It is also refusing to reveal how much money it lost in the three-year period that has been audited – and it hasn’t looked years prior to 2011, despite evidence of long-running rorting practices.
A Health Department spokeswoman said 17 travel agents had now been referred to police – that is more than half of the 29 agents who were registered with the scheme.
It emerged last month that individual pensioners, booking their own trips, had also fleeced the department – though Health is refusing to go into that detail.
“The department is unable to comment on any individuals, as opposed to travel agents,” a department spokesperson said.
Despite auditing receipts from a period between 2011 and 2014, the department has yet to reveal basic details about how much taxpayers money it lost in overpayments to travel agents and individuals.
It also will not say exactly how much it managed to claw back from travel agents.
“In excess of $2.3 million has been recovered from agents to date, and some further recoveries are anticipated,” the spokesperson said.
Discrepancies first noticed in 2012
Health first identified potential discrepancies in October 2012, and it then led the inter-agency taskforce that has been auditing receipts.
Of the 17 travel agents now referred to police, 10 agents were only referred yesterday.
All ten were Flight Centre travel agents.
NT Health Minister John Elferink said Flight Centre had now re-paid the Government “just under $2.3 million”, but that this civil settlement would have no bearing on action to do with a potential criminal case.
The repaid monies, according to the Health Department, related to the audited period 2011-14.
But it appears the Government and taxpayers will never know how many millions of dollars were rorted from the scheme.
Katherine travel agent business owner Tennille Kim Foley last month pleaded guilty to rorting about $40,000 from the scheme.
The Darwin Magistrates Court heard she had first learnt the practice of submitting inflated invoices when working for another agency.
She worked at Flight Centre until 2004, before running her own business for the next 10 years.