Bureaucrat’s wife tells ICAC she was in the dark over $80k cash loan

The wife of a bureaucrat, who has admitted corruption, says she was in the dark about luxury gifts and the “source” of an $80,000 loan her husband needed cash to repay.

The wife of a bureaucrat claims she was kept in the dark even as luxury cars, school fees and thousands of dollars in gifts appeared in their home courtesy of her allegedly corrupt husband.

The corruption watchdog has heard she couldn’t even get a clear answer from her husband when he asked her to withdraw $80,000 in cash to pay back “loans” to an unnamed “source”.

RMS worker Craig Steyn told the Independent Commission Against Corruption he was part of a “a corrupt network” that gave lucrative government contracts to friends and families in exchange for kickbacks.

Steyn and co-worker Aexandre Dubois are accused by the ICAC of netting $7m worth of kickbacks at least between them.

Aleesha Steyn, the wife of bureaucrat Craig Steyn, leaves ICAC on Tuesday afternoon. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Steyn claimed in evidence that Dubois had brought him into the network that handed out a combined $41m of contracts.

He told his wife, Aleesha, the same thing when the ICAC raided their Castle Hill home in mid-2019, she told the commission on Tuesday.

“He advised me that Alex is involved in something and he’s been dragged in,” Mrs Steyn said.

“He was beside himself. I was just there for support.”

Mrs Steyn was asked if she knew her husband had helped friends and family secure government tenders through the very department where he was working.

“No idea,” she repeatedly responded.

She said she had no idea those companies were paying for her house to be renovated or picking up the bill for her family’s living expenses.

Bureaucrat Craig Steyn is appearing at ICAC accused of taking kickbacks. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Mrs Steyn did know, however, that Steyn’s cousins had paid school fees for her son’s private education and had given them their old Audi - she thought it was a gift.

She also knew, she said, Steyn’s cousins ran a company called AA Steel and they were contractors with the RMS.

Mrs Steyn said she became suspicious when her husband sent her to the bank and asked her to withdraw $80,000 so he could pay back a “loan”.

It ended in an argument when Mrs Steyn asked her husband who he had borrowed money from and asked if he’d visited a loan shark.

“I got to the point I put my hands up,” she said.

“I suspected, and may have brought it up, that (I thought) it was Alex Dubois. I don’t think (my husband) answered me.”

Mrs Steyn, earlier, said she worked in the public service and knew it would be wrong or corrupt for public officials to have conflicts of interests in the tendering process and it would be wrong to receive money in that situation.

The ICAC, last week, heard AA Steel purchased a $124,000 Mercedes C63 and gave it to Steyn along with thousands in cash among other gifts.

Steyn, on Monday, said he believed he had lost his job since the ICAC publicly aired the allegations against him.