MORE than a year after 44 tablet computers meant for students at Charlemont High School in St Catherine went missing there is neither any trace of them nor has the outcome of an investigation carried out by the school board, and a report subsequently submitted to the Ministry of Education on the matter, been released.

The development has left members of Friends of Charlemont High School, the non-profit body responsible for the donation, fuming and disappointed.

Following numerous attempts to have the matter resolved, the Friends of Charlemont High School, in a letter to Dr Carol Clarke who chairs the school board, charged that a massive cover-up is taking place.

David Marshall, president of the Friends of Charlemont High School — a group of former students — said in the letter to the board, “After 12 months of pleading with Principal Garth Gayle and the board chairperson, no one has attempted to give us a definitive answer about the missing tablets.”

He said this is so even though Dr Clarke assured them last year that she would “get to the bottom of the matter and provide us with a report at the end of a thorough investigation she was conducting into the matter”.

In a December 21, 2022 email sent to Marshall, seen by the Jamaica Observer, Dr Clarke wrote: “The Ministry of Education is fully aware of the matter of the missing tablets as the board has turned over all the documents concerning same. You and your association are in receipt of all the documents that were turned over to that body.

“The Ministry of Education conducted [its] own investigation and auditors came to the school. Based on this unfortunate situation, the ministry has now established protocols to manage gifts and donations that schools receive from time to time.”

In her email Dr Clarke added: “The ministry has now established a unit that now deals solely with gifts and donations [from stakeholders such as alumni] so that in the future there will be no repeat of what happened at Charlemont where stakeholders need answers and the resultant scenario of allegations, libel, ill-will and frustration.”

However, the response from Dr Clarke has not satisfied Marshall and his group as he argued that “the crucial question of the whereabouts of the tablets remains unanswered”.

Marshall added: “Due to the lack of a response from the principal and the board chair to that question, we were forced to conduct our own investigations into the matter. Our investigations found evidence, including documents and discussions with Kingston Logistics Centre, the company which handled the tablets, that they were picked up by Principal Gayle from the centre on October 20, 2021.”

The letter to the school board contains a detailed sequence of events surrounding the acquisition of the tablets — including dates, documents, waivers from the Ministry of Education — as well as costs totalling more than $38,000 relating to shipping, transportation, brokerage fees, and tax duty reimbursement.

Marshall has also expressed disappointment that they have not been able to get any help or information from the education ministry on the matter despite the fact that a report was sent to the ministry by the board chair as a result of the investigation.

Neither Dr Clarke, nor Gayle, responded to recent emails from the Observer seeking comments on the matter.

Responding to questions from the Observer, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education Maureen Dwyer said, “My knowledge of the allegation outlined in your email is scant.”

She promised to ask the ministry’s regional director, under which Charlemont falls, to “do a quick round-up on the matter”.

The tablets were part of a total of 80, which Marshall and his members say were acquired at a cost of US$8,000 or more than $1.2 million.

During an interview addressing the matter last year, Marshall was joined by vice-president of Friends of Charlemont High School, Benjamin Powell and the group’s treasurer Michael Braithwaite, who claimed that the members had become somewhat discouraged about providing further assistance to the school while the matter of the missing tablets remains unresolved.