THE Ministry of Public Telecommunications said it is in the process of implementing every recommendation made by the auditor general including the creation and maintenance of registers for fuel and security and also the early reconciliation of payments for electricity with IFMAS accounts.

In a statement issued on Friday the ministry said too that it will ensure that the stocks of laptop computers are physically checked periodically for accurate conciliation. Permanent Secretary of the ministry Derrick Cummings said that the MoPT is an 18-month-old ministry with oversight for several older agencies including the GPOC and the eGovernment Unit/NDMA.

He said that the main challenges arise from the very necessary changes to be made to ensure that the entire ministry is compliant with the trajectory of the administration and with the introduction of new technologies.

Meanwhile, the Audit Office had recommended that the ministry must ensure that the four employees who hold ‘temporary’ NIS numbers should have their statuses changed to ‘permanent.’ Cummings said as soon as he was apprised by the auditor general in September 2017, he immediately notified the four affected employees.

He said they received guidance from the ministry’s personnel office with respect to their approach to NIS. The Insurance Scheme’s regulations dictate that transactions of this nature be completed by the contributors themselves.

In October, three of the four employees received their permanent NIS numbers and the NIS has given the assurance that it is their standard policy to transfer all employees’ contributions from temporary to permanent policies. The fourth MoPT employee is still to conclude her part of the procedures and she is being encouraged to do so without further delay.

According to the ministry, Cummings said that human error was the most likely cause of the failure to flag the different statuses of the four employees. As such, he has implemented a procedural change to ascertain that every new employee receives ‘permanent’ status by the NIS within three months of employment.