By Cynthia Maku
Fraud investigations into the suspected NCDPHA pay 13 payroll fraud began on Friday following a briefing by the National Capital District Provincial Health Authority (NCDPHA) Management with the Directorate of the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Squad, Inspector John Gitua, at his Konedobu office.
The NCDPHA Management submitted a report and relevant available payroll information on the alleged fraud claim during their visit to the fraud team.
The NCDPHA Chief Executive Officer, Dr Steven Yennie, informed the Fraud and Anti-Corruption Director that his management had only been made aware of this possible fraudulent case on Tuesday, July 4th, after anomalies in the pay 13 payroll report were identified by the Deputy Director for Corporate Services – Finance & Administration.
“Once my office was informed on the 4th of July, we quickly instructed for an internal investigation which then uncovered another eight unauthorized payments apart from the one million kina that was paid to a former executive of NCDPHA”, said Dr Yennie.
Dr Yennie also emphasized that the current payroll updates and input of payroll data through the Alesco Payroll system where currently done at access points outside of NCDPHA as it was not setup yet at the NCDPHA main office.
“Inputs for the Alesco payroll for NCDPHA are currently managed at access points at the Department of Finance and Department of Personnel Management. The NCDPHA management is not aware of the processes relating to the input and payment of the reported amounts of money,” said Dr Yennie.
“Following preliminary assessments, we have immediately frozen bank accounts, taken administrative actions on implicated officers and created an inter-departmental investigation,” Yennie emphasized.
In receiving the report and request to do fraud investigations, Inspector Gitua thanked Dr Steven Yennie for approaching his Directorate and assured the NCDPHA management that they will look into the case as a matter of urgency.
“We have received some documentation and welcome the current reports you have given. We will do our investigations in collaboration with your management and arrests will be made once we have enough evidence to build a case against the perpetrators”, said Inspector Gitua.
Apart from investigations by the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Squad, several other investigations have begun. This includes investigation by the Departments of Finance and an independent payroll auditor.
Furthermore, NCDPHA also established an Inter-Departmental Investigation Committee to start their investigations on Monday, 17th July, 2023.
