The National Pension and Provident Fund (NPPF) has unclaimed government employees provident fund amounting to more than Nu 48 M. The funds as per the Annual Audit Report 2019 has remained unclaimed for many years.
This amount has been added to total unresolved irregularities summing up to more than Nu 54 M in the Report.
The audit for the NPPF was conducted as a compliance audit for the period covering 1st July 2015 to 30th June 2018. At the time of the audit, the Royal Audit Authority (RAA) found out that more than Nu 48 M government employee provident funds were lying in their books of accounts. Although the authority does not have the number of people who didn’t claim their PF, it was known that beneficiaries were either expired, did not possess required documents for releasing the payments or were not traceable.
“One of the main reasons was they couldn’t trace the beneficiaries. So we asked what action the NPPF took. When we enquired and asked for evidence, we found that at that point of time when we were auditing, they do not have anything to prove, saying that they have initiatives and actions. For that matter, they have to remind and follow up with the beneficiaries, informing that they have this many unclaimed government funds in our account,” said Chimi Dorji, the Deputy Auditor-General at the RAA.
He added that although the amount is still with the agency, it is their responsibilities to follow up on finding beneficiaries and providing them with the continuous service.
“So this, in essence, is not irregularities but we are reminding them they have this amount in their books of accounts but because they are not able to trace people, they are not able to pay this, so this is not huge irregularities but since it has remained unresolved during that period, we were developing and finalising AAR, so we have included in the unresolved irregularities,” he added.
As per the response from NPPF to the RAA, it was stated that their studies found out many members had either absconded, died or had moved to another agency and had been issued new NPPF number. The challenge in resolving the issue was mainly because of the unavailability of citizenship Identity card number information.
They said the issue will be presented to the National Pension Board for decision and the pension and provident fund division shall implement the board decision accordingly. As per the NPPF, the issue will further be discussed in Public Accounts Committee meeting.
Samten Dolkar
