The Ministry of Health has reported an unresolved recovery balance of over $244,064 due to overpaid salaries as of July 31, 2022. This information was confirmed by the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Jemesa Tudravu, during public submissions regarding the review of the 2022 Audit Report on the Social Services Sector.
Dr. Tudravu noted that the ministry’s human resources unit has reinforced its internal controls to prevent future salary overpayments. In response to delays in processing resignation notifications that contributed to these overpayments, the ministry has decentralised its operations.
“The ministry has implemented stringent measures to address this issue by decentralising the management of resignations to their respective cost centres,” Mr. Tudravu stated. This new approach enables the human resources unit to provide immediate guidance to the accounts department regarding the activation or suspension of salaries for employees who have exited the organization.
Dr. Tudravu acknowledged that many of these overpayments remain unresolved, particularly for officers who were deemed to have resigned but submitted their notifications late. Consequently, salary cessation occurred after the officers had already received their pay.
Idrish Khan, head of finance and asset management, emphasized that some cases involve employees who resigned but were not promptly removed from the payroll, especially if they are currently overseas. “In cases where notifications of resignation have come in late, salary cessation has occurred, and we have discovered that officers have already been paid. This makes the recovery process challenging, especially when the officer is offshore,” Mr. Khan explained.
To improve the overall process, hospitals are now mandated to submit biweekly reports on staff cessations. Dr. Tudravu expressed that this practice would facilitate better reconciliation between payroll data and human resources records.