THE HEART/NSTA Trust is advising potential participants in its programmes to beware fraudulent entities purporting to offer certification on its behalf.
This warning comes from Members of Parliament (MPs) who have seen first hand their constituents falling victim to these schemes.
Just last year, HEART had to defend its honour when unscrupulous persons sought to defraud Jamaicans with an offer for overseas employment.
This was done via a flyer circulated on social media indicating that the agency was working with the Jamaican Consulate of the Cayman Islands to facilitate employment in Cayman.
In advertisements placed in the newspapers at the time, the trust advised that it is not mandated to facilitate/guarantee overseas employment and as such would never conduct promotional activity of any kind, making any such claims.
On Wednesday, during a meeting of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), MPs raised the matter as the committee continued its inquisition of HEART representatives.
Government committee member Kerensia Morrison expressed concern about unregulated entities offering or promising HEART certification — which could be fraudulent — and questioned what systems are being put in place to clamp down on them.
“From time to time, constituents will say to me that they went and they did a HEART training programme at this school and they are unable to get the certificate and I am wondering how many of them are really having a partnership with HEART or they are in a position…to offer HEART certification. So well it could very well be a scam,” she said.
Morrison, who is MP for St Catherine North Eastern, provided the scenario of a mother who decided to go back to school and get certified, and “goes to one of these little institutions” that promises a HEART certificate but after completion gets the run-around for months, years, having spent money to attend. “It is heart-rending,” she said.
Opposition member and MP for St Catherine Southern Fitz Jackson said he has also encountered the issue of constituents being duped by some of these entities offering HEART and other programmes.
“In my constituency there are some programmes [for which] young people come to my office to seek assistance… it’s a ‘no-no’… like some of these practical nursing programmes. That is a scam! Because 90-odd per cent of them who leave with a certificate can’t go anywhere. But yet the people who run these programmes make a whole lot of money,” he said.