| -system designed for manipulationA review of the state-run Old Age Pension programme has revealed total chaos, with the government in 2010 unable to determine how much money would have been paid at a given time, according to the Auditor General of Guyana.“The overall conclusion of the review was that the Old Age Pension system administered by the Ministry (of Labour, Human Services and Social Security) did not allow for the prevention and detection of manipulation or fraud,” the 2010 Report of the Auditor General said.The programme has been dogged by reports of mismanagement and fraud with the Audit Office conducting a Performance/Value for Money (VFM) audit and even the Police were called in to investigate the cashing of fake coupons at a Post Office.Regarding the VFM findings,China Jerseys, the audit report said that the database was not updated on a regular basis for new pensioners and those who had died. As a matter of fact, it took as much as a month to 131 days or about four months,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, for death information to be posted into the database, leading to an increased risk of pension books for dead persons to be left in the system for issuing.The Audit Office also found that although the pension books were sequentially numbered, this was not entered into the database, so that it became difficult to track what books and coupons went to the particular pensioner.“Therefore, it was not possible to determine whether the books were allocated to the right pensioners, and whether coupons were encashed for deceased persons.”According to the audit report, internally at the Ministry level, there was no clear segregation of the Database Administrator and four processing operators who had access to create, amend or delete standing data. “As a result, the lack of segregation of duties by authorized users increases the scope for manipulation…”The report also said that there was the likelihood of the servers being accessed by the unauthorized as they were in an area that was not restricted.Criticizing the printing contract with the supplier as a faulty one, the report said that the supplier and not the Ministry owned the software.“Further,jerseys nfl wholesale, the Ministry did not have appropriate measures in place to monitor the printing process, the quality of the old age pension books and security of the software.”The audit also uncovered that the Ministry did not take responsibility for the collection of the pension books from the printing facility nor the disposal of spoilt pension books.“As a result of the lack of control over the software and printing process,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, there is a risk of irregularities occurring.”More alarmingly, the Audit Office found that the Ministry did not verify the pension books from the supplier but left this to the pensioners and post office to find the defected and damaged coupons.“With regards to storekeeping procedures,Cheap China Jerseys, it was found that the undistributed books returned by Probation Officers after distribution were not subjected to storekeeping procedures but were kept in possession of (the) Assistant Chief Probation Officer.”But there were more discoveries of the pension programme that were worrisome.“There was no system in place by the Ministry for checking the validity of paid coupons. The onus was on the post office to verify and identify fraudulent coupons. Information such as serial number of the pension book and the month of the coupon was not maintained in the database for pensioners. As such, the Ministry was unable to establish the total amounts paid as pensions for any given period.”The report also revealed that the Ministry was not reconciling the amounts paid by the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOS) and therefore no reimbursements were done.“…and as such the Ministry could not determine the amounts owed to, or by the GPOC.”The post offices are the main place of payments old age pension vouchers.It is believed that millions of dollars were stolen from the programme using fake vouchers and even instances of vouchers issued to dead persons for encashment.Prior to the 2010 special VFM audit, over 8,000 coupons were disclosed to be irregularly encashed. This was to the tune of almost $14M. Some officers made restitutions to around $3.8M. In March 2007,Cheap Jerseys From China Online, the police informed the Ministry that the Director of Public Prosecution had suspended the investigations.According to the Ministry, it had prepared a loss report and submitted it to the Ministry of Finance in June 2007. |
