Pension scam unearthed as the 'dead' collect payments

Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

Public-sector data has shown that many deceased persons are still raking in pension payments in what could be a massive scam operated by those who are still in the land of the living.

A day after news surfaced that the public-sector payroll contained former employees who were deceased, Minister of Finance and the Public Service Audley Shaw declared that multimillion-dollar frauds had been uncovered and at least one former government employee is on the run.

Following a tour of the Students' Loan Bureau's St Andrew offices, Shaw told journalists yesterday that one employee who was implicated in a multimillion-dollar scam is believed to have fled the island.

Racket fed by antiquated system

There are indications that the irregularities were spawned by an antiquated, paper-driven system that governs payments to more than 100,000 public-sector workers.

Chairman of the Public Sector Transformation Unit Peter Moses had on Tuesday revealed to Parliament's Public Administration and Appropriations Committee that the unit had discovered discrepancies, including cases of persons who are no longer alive remaining on the government payroll.

Same concerns

Yesterday, Shaw said the problem was much more serious than mere discrepancies.

"These are some of the issues that we have to deal with, and deal with quickly. There are also reports of some cases where we have actually uncovered fraud," asserted Shaw. "One of the latest ones was is in the pensions section, where some people were receiving pensions who are not able to receive it anymore."

Asked to clarify, Shaw responded: "The same thing Mr Moses is talking about but, in some of those cases, it wasn't so much a matter of the quality of record-keeping, it was actually a question of fraud."

Shaw said the police had been called in and the authorities were now trying to determine whether the matter was an extraditable offence.

He said more than $20 million could not be accounted for over several years, spanning back to the previous administration.

"All these identified weaknesses have been around for a long time and this is why the Government has made a decision that we are going to establish a central treasury management system," he said.

Senator Arthur Williams, state minister in the finance ministry with responsibility for the public service, described some of the problems as anomalies.

"We are actually checking on it now. I would think that in due course a report will be made," Williams said.

gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com