Four invoices totalling $720,000 were paid out by the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) to former Education Minister Ruel Reid’s now deceased driver for providing meals for students.

This was disclosed in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Tuesday, during the proceedings by a detective sergeant of the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA).

Two of the invoices were each for $330,000, and the other two for $30,000, covering the period from January to March 2018.

The detective sergeant of MOCA had taken a statement from the now-deceased witness in April 2019.

A minister of religion and administrator at Jamaica College had previously identified the deceased man as his brother. He told the court that the man had worked as a watchman at the school and also served as Reid’s driver. He died of cancer in November 2020.

The detective told the court that in March 2019, she was instructed to do her investigation by her superior to assist the Financial Investigations Division (FID), which was probing the matter. The following month, she visited the FID offices and later accompanied a detective inspector to the driver’s home in Vineyard Town, St Andrew.

After speaking with the witness, she invited him to visit the FID office, and he complied. There, he was interviewed and shown the invoices. He gave a statement and affixed his signature to the document.

The detective sergeant also testified that on September 24 of this year, she was visited by the same detective inspector, who showed her a copy of the front page of a funeral programme with the driver’s image.

Reid, his wife Sharen, their daughter Sharelle, former CMU head Professor Fritz Pinnock, and Jamaica Labour Party Councillor Kim Brown Lawrence are currently before the Court for their alleged involvement in a scheme to defraud both the Ministry of Education and the CMU of more than $25 million.