NAO report highlights irregularities in payments to Ministry’s private secretariat
Charlot Zahra
According to the National Audit Office (NAO) report for 2004, irregularities were committed at the private secretariat of the then Ministry for Transport and Communications, which in March 2004 became the Ministry for Competitiveness and Communications.
For instance, private secretariat officers are only entitled to overtime when working in excess of 47 hours in any given period of four weeks. During 2004, they were collectively paid Lm775 for overtime not exceeding the stipulated 47 hours. Furthermore, the officers did not have enough overtime hours carried forward from previous months.
On the other hand, two new employees were not paid for overtime during their first payment period, even though they worked more than 47 hours.
One employee reported late for work between March and mid-May 2004 without having any deductions made as required and no reasons were recorded in the attendance sheets to cover the employee’s absence from work.
A senior officer certified attendance sheets even on days when on sick or vacation leave and certified time-out of staff when not present on the premises.
Times of arrival and/or departure were not registered and/or illegible, and overwriting in registered time-in and time-out made it impossible to determine overtime calculations.
Moreover, certain registered time-in and time-out of different officers had the same handwriting.
Out of the 24 employees, including retired officers, working with the private secretariat during 2004, the contents of the secretariat agreement or appendices attached relating to four officers did not correspond to the relative contents as detailed in the “Engagement of Staff for Ministers’ Secretariats” guidelines, while no appendix number was specified for another five employees.
In its report, the NAO recommended that the private secretariat should recover money paid on overtime which was not due.
The private secretariat should adopt attendance verification systems as detailed in the Public Service Management Code (PSMC), to calculate and control overtime hours worked.
No authorisation for overtime payment should be given unless such overtime is properly confirmed.
The private secretariat should regularise its position by issuing the appropriate payment arrears to the two officers concerned.
In order to control work attendances, the private secretariat should immediately give a warning to late comers, especially when no valid reason is given, and rigorously apply the relevant provisions of the PSMC detailing deduction of unauthorised absences and temporary absence system among other things.
During the absence of the senior officer, the attendance registers should be certified correct by top management of the Private Secretariat.
No overtime payment is to be made if details on the attendance sheets are not complete and/or are illegible.
Prior to being certified correct, attendance sheets should be reviewed “for apparent same calligraphy for different signatories”.
The Ministry should ensure that documents required for engaging members of staff in the private secretariat are fully completed as stipulated in the guidelines.
On its part, the Ministry agreed with most of the NAO recommendations and action was taken accordingly.
However, it called for the measures recommended to recoup the money overpaid to be re-considered in view of the fact that a number of employees have terminated their employment with the private secretariat.
The Ministry added that the senior officer always consulted with the head of secretariat, top management or the Minister before certifying attendance sheets when said officer left the office prior to staff who stayed on to attend the Minister.