Minister of State for the Public Service Pia Glover-Rolle addresses questions from reporters. File photo.
NASSAU, The Bahamas--Several finance officers at the Ministry of Finance adjusted their salaries without proper approval, resulting in their being overpaid by more than US $4 million, according to Minister of State for the Public Service Pia Glover-Rolle.
“An internal audit was conducted and there are some gaps in the controls when it comes to the finance officers,” she told reporters outside Cabinet on Tuesday morning.
“What has happened is those finance officers have adjusted the system to ensure that their pay rates were increased based on an approval that they have gotten and that we have not, in the public service, had any vision of.
“So, basically, normal government procedure in terms of adjusting the pay scales was not observed.
“This resulted in an overpayment of $4 million plus by that same scale of employees where the system would have been adjusted in their favour without the proper government procedures.”
Glover-Rolle did not say when the officers’ salaries had been adjusted or how many people were involved.
She added that officials from the Ministry of Public Service and Ministry of Finance are meeting to determine how the matter will be addressed.
“The normal policy of overpayment is recovery,” Glover-Rolle continued.
“The audit has revealed some gaps in terms of controls and the policy is to recover. We have found some things as a result of the audit that were done wrong and I’m sure consequences will follow.” ~ The Nassau Guardian ~
