Head’s ‘£150k on staff credit card for luxury trips’
THE principal of a cashstrapped college is being investigated after spending £150,000 on her corporate credit card with fivestar hotel stays and a taxi just for her luggage.
Stella Mbubaegbu, 63, splashed out on lobster at a leading restaurant and billed £434 headphones and a £219.99 dishwasher to the college while staff suffered wage freezes.
The head of Highbury College in Portsmouth spent more than £60,000 on exclusive hotels and more than £70,000 on travel, with first and business class flights and luxury cars.
Ministers have now ordered the Further Education Commissioner to look ‘urgently’ at the credit card use. Lord Agnew, who oversees the commissioner, said he and UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson were ‘deeply concerned’. He added: ‘School and college leaders must treat taxpayers’ money with the utmost care and in a way that benefits their students.’ Mrs Mbubaegbu’s lavish spending has been exposed by the journal FE Week, which obtained more than 500 receipts after a year-long freedom of information battle with the college. They cover the academic years 2014-15 to 2017-18. The revelations come at a time of redundancies at the college. The last time staff had a pay rise was in January 2013. Minutes of a governors’ meeting in May reveal Mrs Mbubaegbu warned the 2019-20 budget would be the ‘hardest for years’.
The mother of three’s highest spend was for travel, with more than 30 flights to places such as the US, Canada, India, Germany and Dubai. Landing at Heathrow in London on November 16, 2016, she paid £175 for a luxury car service to take her to the Hilton Birmingham Metropole, while another car firm picked up her luggage and took it back to her home in Hampshire.
In a statement, Mrs Mbubaegbu alleged the FE Week investigation contained ‘exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims’. She added: ‘The expenses... were approved and authorised correctly.
‘A sizable amount was reimbursed to the college through grants or other funding.’