Suspected fraud
CASES of suspected fraud was among findings of a recent audit conducted for the Housing Authority (HA) of Fiji in relation to allegations of corrupt practices by its staff members.
Speaking on the findings yesterday, Local Government Minister Premila Kumar said the audit also revealed selection and allotment of lots were not documented.
She said some former staff members had approved lots despite not having the authority to do so.
In many cases, Mrs Kumar said information requested by the auditor-general’s team was not provided by the authority, adding this demonstrated there was no proper centralised system for record-keeping and tracking on decisions on all lots allocated to persons.
“Segregation of duties was not exercised in customer selection and lot allocation process,” she said.
“Policies and procedures of the authority indicated that the authority was giving preference for lots to customers who indicated financing the purchase of lots and construction of homes.”
She said customers were allocated more than one lot.
“Customers who owned properties were allocated lots. The authority did not perform further checks of property ownership of these customers prior to allotting lots. Customers used retired elderly parents and relatives with no source of income to obtain lots by transferring money to their accounts.”
She said they accepted money from people without verifying the sources of income.
“A number of current and former staff of the HA and their relatives were allotted lots and lack of documentation to confirm whether adequate disclosure of interest were made by these staff.
“Lack of documents for tenders awarded and no evidence of declaration of interest in relation to tender process.”