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Teixeira admonishes accounting officers to stop paying public servants who fail to show up for work
Kaieteur News – Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira has admonished accounting officers from the various Ministries to stop paying workers who fail to show up to work.
Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira.
Teixeira was at the time addressing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), noting that millions of dollars are lost each year because of overpayments of salaries. This was alluded to by members of the PAC.
According to information revealed as the Ministry of Health’s accounts, in the Auditor General 2016 report, were being examined, some $1.7 million was overpaid as net salaries to 16 employees – a recurring issue across the various Government Ministries and agencies.
Former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Trevor Thomas told the PAC that the Ministry continues to grapple with the issue of overpayments.
Thomas explained that one of the scenarios that would lead to this situation is when employees walk off the job or resign at the end of the month but salaries would have already been paid. The salary is placed into their accounts and they eventually make good with the sums.
The former PS noted that the Ministry has made several attempts to recover some of these salaries but with little success.
“The Ministry has put systems in place to reduce it as such as possible so, for example, if a person proceeds on leave, their salaries are there until they resume duties and so on. But the main challenge is in the structure because persons are paid before the end of the month and sometimes the people just leave like that…While we make attempts to recover the funds, because salaries are paid through the bank, it is not always that successful. So it’s an ongoing effort to continue to recoup monies from persons,” Thomas explained.
However, Minister Teixeira noted the efforts are not satisfactory.
She said that there must be more alertness and better communication between the Regional Health Officers (RHOs) and Heads of Departments in the Ministry to avoid this issue of overpayments.
“There has to be a more careful examination of the payroll so that the RHOs out there who are in charge of the regions and the Ministry’s Heads of Department. When someone walks off the job – they haven’t found them for three-four days and they haven’t submitted medicals and they may not have officially resigned but they’re just not there, there is supposed to be a system in the Personnel Department for those Heads to alert the accounts section that there’s reason to stop the payroll in the first place,” the Minister posited.
According to Minister Teixeira, while this is not a foolproof system, it will reduce the prevalence of overpayments to employees who are unjustifiably absent from work.
“Whilst we are pleased to hear that there will be some improvements, we have to be structured and systemic. I keep hearing every Ministry say people walk off and we can’t do anything about it. There is the means and ways that the PS can say to the Finance people that the following people are not here and therefore, the cheque in the first place would not be electronically distributed,” Teixeira said.
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