Last minute with pension records

DEPUTY Auditor General Lorelly Pujadas said some ministries were not preparing pension records until officers were ready to retire.

She was speaking yesterday as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) met with the Auditor General’s Department at the Parliament building, Port of Spain.

PAC member Ayanna Webster-Roy asked about the pervasive issue with pensions and separation benefits and added that a number of people would visit constituency offices and complain that they were told their pensions were still at the Auditor General’s office.

Pujadas responded that the office is the last port for a pension assessment to be verified and this required that each ministry and each department were supposed to have annual pension leave records done for their officers every year to be submitted to the Comptroller of Accounts Treasury Division for verification. She said if these records were submitted in a timely manner issues relating to a person’s service, such as being underpaid or overpaid, would be dealt with and there would be no issues when the officer was ready to retire.

“However what you have found that over the years officers’ pension and leave records often times do not follow them when they move from ministry to ministry, department to department. Nor do most ministries – are there are some ministries that are actually very flagrant with that – they do not actually prepare pension leave records for officers. So what you find an officer like myself who is about to exit the service you will find that they rush at the end of my career to try and update my pension leave record.”