The Auditor-General’s audit of public sector agencies and government bodies has found yet more lapses.
This time round, lapses were found in contract assessment and the tender process involving SkillsFuture and the Home Affairs Ministry, amongst other government bodies.
SkillsFuture Singapore was found to have made overpayments estimated at S$4.22 million.
The organisation made disbursements to individuals and companies that were disallowed funding.
In some scenarios, individuals were discovered to be attending multiple courses with overlaps in attendance timing.
SSG was also lax in enforcing the outstanding Skills Development Levy collections.
This is a compulsory levy that employers have to pay for all their employees working in Singapore.
The estimated outstanding levy owed as at April this year stands at S$43 million, for the period between 2015 and 2020.
As for the Home Affairs Ministry, the audit found lapses in the form of inadequate assessment of the cost reasonableness for “star rate items”.
These are items for which rates were not listed in the contract.
198 out of 199 star items were not assessed based on independent sources, which goes against the stipulated guidelines on how such items are quoted.
The total value of these items stand at S$4.61 million.
There were also possible irregularities in the quotations given by contractors for 531 out of 752 star rate items.
The AGO audit covered 16 Government ministries and eight organs of state, as well as 10 statutory boards, four government-owned companies and two other accounts.
