‘Staff not recruited as per budget allocation’

THE Department of Meteorological Services did not recruit 23 staff members despite being given a budgetary allocation, the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) stated in the 2019 Audit Report on General Administration Sector tabled in Parliament recently.

The OAG found the 23 positions or 19 per cent of the total established 120 positions in the department for the financial year 20182019 were vacant.

“Further analysis showed that 17 (74 per cent) out of the 23 vacant staff posts were technical positions which require personnel to fill positions that directly attribute to the core functions of the department,” the report read.

“The department was allocated a budget of $5.5 million for all the 120 positions where it only utilised $4.6 million or 83 per cent of the total allocation. As a result, budget of $889,012 (17 per cent) was not utilised due to vacant positions recorded during the year.”

The OAG stated this indicated the inability of the ministry to efficiently process vacant positions.

“Prolonged delay in filling the vacant posts could compromise the service delivery of the ministry.

“To warrant efficient and effective service delivery, the ministry should ensure that vacant positions are advertised and filled in a timely manner.”

The Department of Meteorological Services stated “we are working at improving this”.