22-07-2021, 11:52 AM
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/a...s-trackers
The roll-out of a national fitness challenge by the Health Promotion Board (HPB) was found to have wasted $5.39 million of public funds, due to fitness trackers that were not put to use, the Auditor-General's Office (AGO) has said.
In its annual audit of government accounts, the AGO also flagged that erroneous claims paid to ineligible officers or pensioners over a period of more than two years which were administered by the Public Service Division (PSD) had resulted in possible overpayment of around $500,000.
The AGO detailed these findings, among others, in a report released on Thursday (July 22) on government accounts for the 2020/2021 financial year
For HPB, the AGO noted that its lapses pertained to the National Steps Challenge season 1 to 5, which had ended between one and five years prior to the audit.
AGO's checks found 268,000 excess fitness trackers, of whose value totalled $4.26 million.
Following this discovery, HPB carried out a full stock count in January this year, which found that it actually had 341,000 excess trackers, with value totalling $5.39 million.
The audit office noted that while the stock of trackers was properly accounted for, HPB's processes were inadequate to ensure that the movement of these fitness trackers were properly monitored.
"The receipt and distribution of trackers involved manual processes and multiple external parties. There was no central monitoring of the movement and stock of trackers; records maintained were incomplete; and there was no periodic reconciliation of records with physical stock on hand," it said.
On the lapses found in the claims administered by the PSD, AGO said that it discovered these erroneous claims while it was auditing medical and dental claims in the civil service.
The office found 9,500 possible erroneous claims paid to ineligible officers/pensioners over the period of January 1 2018 to March 31 2020. AGO said: "While this amounted to only 0.3 per cent of the three million claims processed during this period, the estimated possible overpayment by Government was not small, at around $0.5 million."
The roll-out of a national fitness challenge by the Health Promotion Board (HPB) was found to have wasted $5.39 million of public funds, due to fitness trackers that were not put to use, the Auditor-General's Office (AGO) has said.
In its annual audit of government accounts, the AGO also flagged that erroneous claims paid to ineligible officers or pensioners over a period of more than two years which were administered by the Public Service Division (PSD) had resulted in possible overpayment of around $500,000.
The AGO detailed these findings, among others, in a report released on Thursday (July 22) on government accounts for the 2020/2021 financial year
For HPB, the AGO noted that its lapses pertained to the National Steps Challenge season 1 to 5, which had ended between one and five years prior to the audit.
AGO's checks found 268,000 excess fitness trackers, of whose value totalled $4.26 million.
Following this discovery, HPB carried out a full stock count in January this year, which found that it actually had 341,000 excess trackers, with value totalling $5.39 million.
The audit office noted that while the stock of trackers was properly accounted for, HPB's processes were inadequate to ensure that the movement of these fitness trackers were properly monitored.
"The receipt and distribution of trackers involved manual processes and multiple external parties. There was no central monitoring of the movement and stock of trackers; records maintained were incomplete; and there was no periodic reconciliation of records with physical stock on hand," it said.
On the lapses found in the claims administered by the PSD, AGO said that it discovered these erroneous claims while it was auditing medical and dental claims in the civil service.
The office found 9,500 possible erroneous claims paid to ineligible officers/pensioners over the period of January 1 2018 to March 31 2020. AGO said: "While this amounted to only 0.3 per cent of the three million claims processed during this period, the estimated possible overpayment by Government was not small, at around $0.5 million."
