THE Auditor General found the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation did not maintain a detailed listing of recipients on social protection program in 2023.
This is stated in the Auditor Generals Report on Social Services Sector for 2023 that was tabled in Parliament recently.
The Auditor General said each agency must have in place a cost-effective system of internal controls which safeguards money and property against loss, avoids or detects accounting errors and avoids unfavourable audit reports.
The Ministry paid 153,939 recipients a total of $137.3 million as of 31 July 2023, under the Social Protection Program.
“The audit noted that the Ministry did not maintain a complete list of individual recipients with details such as names, date of application and approval, residential address, mode of payment, tax identification number (TIN), bank details and the number of years recipients have benefited from the scheme,” said the Auditor General.
“In the absence of list of recipients and detailed information, there is potential risk of duplicate and unauthorised payments.”
“The Ministry should maintain updated listings with detailed information of recipients under the respective social protection program/scheme.”
The Ministry stated the Department maintains a recipient listing, mode of payment excel, for all programs that is updated monthly for the purpose of monthly payments.
“This list captures only the basic details necessary for payment and the excel file size for ease of processing,” said the Ministry.
“Under the Social Assistance Reform project, the Department has begun digitization of data that captures all the identified information on the list. Databases are kept in the district office, which is made readily available when needed.”
