Double payments at health ministry exposed by auditor general’s report

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The Ministry of Health and Social Services’ double payments to suppliers have become a new burning concern to the Office of the Auditor-General, Junias Kandjeke.

Kandjeke in his audit report of 31 March 2022 for the financial year ended March 2021, recently exposed the double payments which happened at the Ministry of Health and Social Services.

The auditor-general stated that 24 duplicate payments were made to suppliers amounting to more than N.dollars 155 000.

Kandjeke said so far, there are still no measures in place at the ministry to control or monitor possible double payments there.

“The auditor general’s office now recommends that the Ministry of Health and Social Services recovers the money and completely avoid the double payments in the future,” he said.

Kandjeke further stated that the ministry on its part informed him that the double payments was a result of multiple supplier codes which were allocated to the individual suppliers.

“However, the Ministry of Health and Social Services also started to engage the Ministry of Finance to clean up the database system on the double suppliers accounts,” reported Kandjeke on what the ministry told him.

Information of a staff member who resigned on 13 August 2020 from the ministry, and continued to receive payment, was also discovered.

An amount of over N.dollars 1.5 million was paid in this regard from 17 August 2020 to 21 September 2020.

The number of vehicles also owned by the Ministry of Health and Social Services was questioned, as Kandjeke discovered that on 31 March 2021 the ministry had indicated that 1 888 vehicles were owned, however the master list of vehicles for the same ministry showed a total of 1 647 vehicles.

“The difference of 241 vehicles is not known where it comes from and no explanation was given,” said Kandjeke.

He concluded by saying that this vehicle surplus dilemma has been re-occurring for the past five years at the Ministry of Health and Social Services.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency