BAF terminates contract of two staff members

The Biosecurity Authority of Fiji has terminated the contracts of two of their staff members for abusing the human resources processes and procedures and allowing sacked staff members to continue receiving payments.

Executive Chairman Xavier Riyaz Khan says apart from the internal disciplinary measures taken by the Authority, they will hand over reports on the matter to FICAC for an independent investigation to determine if any prosecution is necessary.

He adds that the Auditor General’s Office and external auditors conducted an audit on Biosecurity Authority of Fiji and their reports revealed a number of discrepancies in their Human Resource system that misrepresented their operational expenses.

Khan highlights that terminated staff manipulated the records to allow employees with expired contracts to continue to receive payments.

He adds there were a number of serious continuing failures to perform normal payroll functions resulting in the improper accounting of employee leave and improper withholding of employee retirement and tax contributions.

Khan says as a result, Fiji National Provident Fund payments and tax were incorrectly deducted and paid to the respective Authorities on numerous occasions.

He adds the staff leave was also recorded incorrectly, resulting in many staff leave records showing under or over utilisation of leave that do not reflect the actual leave taken by staff.

Khan says the terminated staff then compounded this failure by directly breaching internal policies and standards when they knowingly made false or misleading statements and produced false or misleading documentation.

The Authority had sacked the former Manager Finance and three staff members for causing significant transactional errors mid last year.

Khan says they have also handed over the reports on the matter to FICAC for an independent investigation and for any prosecution.

Khan highlights that they have implemented a new resource planning system to manage its financial and human resources more transparently.