Finance ministry urged to recover $5m overpayment to former FSC executive director
AUDITOR GENERAL Pamela Monroe Ellis wants the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service to recover overpayment of nearly $5 million in statutory obligations that the Financial Services Commission (FSC) disbursed to a former executive director as ex-gratia payment.
In an audit of the FSC’s human resources and procurement procedures, the auditor general found that the regulatory body “did not demonstrate proper fiduciary responsibility when it accepted liability for the payment of $4.76 million in statutory obligations of a former executive director”.
Monroe Ellis pointed out that the FSC did not withhold statutory payments of $4.76 million from separation payments of $11.1 million to the former executive director but, as instructed by the board chairman, opted to classify the sum as ex-gratia payments.
An ex-gratia payment is a voluntary payment that is not a part of an organisation’s legal liability.
The Gleaner understands that the $4.76 million ex-gratia payment referenced in the auditor general’s annual report was not made to the former executive director who stepped down in January last year.
The audit also found that the FSC paid the executive director an amount of US$1,000 on the instruction of the chairman, for which there was no evidence that both payments were brought to the attention of the board.
In addition, a former executive director also engaged a consultant for the period February 2015 through to September 2015, whereby FSC paid US$28,000, although there were no terms of reference in place to govern payments.
“We saw no documentation indicating the nature of the services to be provided, as required by the GOJ (Government of Jamaica) Procurement Guidelines,” said Monroe Ellis. She said the FSC did not provide a response to this finding.