Latest update January 28th, 2025 12:59 AM
Latest News
- ‘With hands on oil money, Govt. ditches promise to set up Petroleum Commission’ -Shurwayne Holder
- Oil minister lashes PNC for failing to commit to renegotiation of Exxon deal while Gov’t refuses to do same
- Drug trade putting tremendous strain on security forces – Min. Benn
- New Cotton Field Secondary School to cost $1.7B
- Shadow foreign minister calls out CARICOM over silence in face of recent aggression by Venezuela
Govt. recovers $50M in overpayment without dispute in 2022 – Audit report
Kaieteur News – The Auditor General (AG) Deodat Sharma reporting in his 2022 report noted that the Government was able to recover over $50 million in overpayments, without dispute.
Auditor General (AG), Deodat Sharma
This is the first time the overpayments were not disputed but recovered.
According to the Auditor General’s report, a total of 466 contracts being undertaken by ministries and the regions for 2022, were examined. The Auditor General found that as much as $52.8 million in payments were made on measured works for 33 of these contracts.
“Sums totalling $14.146 million were in relation to Ministries of which the entire amount was recovered at the time of reporting, whilst sums totalling $38.681 million was in relation to Regions One, Two, Five, Six, Eight and 10 of which $17.121 million still remained outstanding in respect of projects for Regions One and 10.”
“It should be noted for the year 2022 except for Regions 1 and 10, all overpayments were recovered. This is the first time these overpayments were not disputed,” the Auditor General detailed in his report.
The AG report noted that nonetheless that there were several instances where overpayments still continue to happen.
For instance, in 2019, sums totalling $199.435M were paid to the Contractor of the Leguan stelling. However, the estimated value of works completed at the time was only $50.970M, resulting in an overpayment of $148.465M. That project is still ongoing under the purview of a new contractor.
Overpayment has been a sore and recurring issue in audit reports which continues to be flagged at meetings of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee. Engineers and other officials are called upon to ensure that this does not persist but despite this, millions are still overpaid on contracts every year. Just last year it was reported, the AG report noted that efforts are being made to recover the overpayment of $204, 201million of new salaries and deductions. The overpayment for the period 2016 to 2019, the Finance Ministry was able to recover $92,569 million of the net salaries and $96,677 million of the deductions and efforts are ongoing to recover the remaining sums overpaid.
Under the Ministry of Health, the overpayment of salaries for 2021 amounted to approximately $22.88 million which was made to six former employees. Two persons have agreed to repay $9.01 million and four have been escalated to the Solicitor General for legal assistance to recover the sum of $13.87 million.
The AG report noted that Ministry is currently conducting research to engage other former employees in an effort to recover additional sums overpaid. The Ministry has also taken several actions to reduce/prevent instances of overpayment which include the assignment of a senior officer to initiate weekly contact with supervisors to ascertain staff attendance, and instructions to supervisors to report resignations and job abandonments via available technology to facilitate faster reporting and action.
In relation to the overpayment for the period 2015 to 2020, the Ministry had reached out to the Solicitor General for legal assistance to recover $3.6million of the $8.221million overpaid and research is on-going to facilitate recovery of the additional overpaid sums.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
‘Govt. must come clean on gas-to-energy project’
– spending US$2B on a project without financial, environmental studies is criminality at its worst – WPA Kaieteur... more
OAS Secretary General Election and renewed OAS Consensus
Antiguan Barbudan Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- The upcoming election... more
Weekend Cartoon
