THE 2014 Office of the Auditor-General’s (OAG) audit report on Government statutory authorities has found that FRCA employees were paid additional salaries without the approval of the board.

A FRCA board meeting had agreed that the salary adjustment for 110 staff positions be factored into the 2013 budget as part of the backdated 2011 Job Evaluation Exercise.

The purpose of the exercise was to correct the remuneration given to staff members and was to be backdated to January 1, 2012.

These 110 staff were to be paid $396,016 altogether. However, the OAG noted in its report that FRCA paid out an additional $109,427.57 in 2013 to 155 officers without the approval of the board, “thus the authority incurred a total pay-out of $505,443.57 to 265 officers”. the report stated.

“In addition, those payouts included officers on acting positions between the periods 1st January 2012 to 31 January 2013 which either moved up or down the salary band after the job evaluation exercise without any recovery made from those officers whose acting salary bands were moved down.”

The OAG report further said that discussions with the national manager finance revealed that payments were based on past practices of making payment of arrears to all its staff.

“However, the audit could not establish why the authority of the board was not complied with. The above is a blatant disregard to the board’s decision which warrants immediate disciplinary action.

“It also indicates the lack of co-ordination between the Human Resource and Finance sections during the exercise to ensure that all relevant factors were considered before making those payments.”

The OAG recommended the FRCA should recover those payments which did not have the endorsement of the board and disciplinary actions instigated against the national manager finance for approving the payments without the board’s authority.

In response, FRCA said the same issue was previously raised by its internal audit team and clarifications on the JE Exercise were made to the audit board committee.

“It was then agreed that a board paper be made and presented at the next full board meeting. The authority shall proceed based on the full board decision,” FRCA concluded.