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SINGAPORE – Errors have been found in the records of around 3,000 former and current civil servants, affecting the benefits they received, such as their starting salaries and medical leave salaries.
Disclosing this on Wednesday (Nov 18), the Public Service Division (PSD) said it discovered the errors while updating the civil service human resources and payroll IT systems.
The Civil Service will compensate current and former officers who were underpaid due to these errors, with a total sum of about $ 10 million.
Those affected made up about 2 percent of the civil servant population over the past two decades, the PSD said.
It took more than two years after the bugs were discovered to track and validate IT system errors, verify 102,000 current and past records dating back to the 1990s, and recalculate benefits, the PSD added.
Most of the errors were related to inaccuracies in the full-time national service records of civil servants.
Subsequent checks also found errors in the calculation of salaries for medical leave, as well as in a program used to add up the payments some retirees make when they retire from service.
The errors arose primarily due to human errors in data entry, as well as the coding of the IT systems involved, the PSD said.
These systems also had inadequate error detection capabilities, he noted.
PSD said it will not recover any excess money paid, “as these were the result of mistakes made long ago.”
It is also working with all statutory boards to verify and verify the records of its employees.
“The statutory boards will also correct any errors if they are discovered,” said PSD.
Mr. Loh Khum Yean, who is the permanent secretary of PSD, said that the Public Service deeply regrets the errors and inconvenience caused.
“We will do our best to reach out to all negatively affected people to apologize for the error, explain the situation and correct the discrepancy,” he said. “We have rectified the system programming and built-in error detection capabilities to pinpoint potential errors and ensure that such inaccuracies are not repeated.”
To compensate for these errors, those negatively affected may have their pension amounts recalculated or may be granted a one-time license difference.
They will be paid for long service awards that were missed and advance to the next level of long service awards.
PSD said it will also compensate those who had to use unpaid leave due to insufficient sick leave and rectify the deficit in starting wages where appropriate.
How the errors occurred
Explaining how the errors occurred, the PSD said that the national service period is taken as part of the length of service of a civil servant and therefore has an impact on the starting salary and benefits.
Since 2002, the Civil Service has recognized the “fitness cutoff” period, where enlisted men who meet the physical fitness requirements serve one to two months less than their peers to determine starting salaries and benefits.
However, this “skill cut” was not included in the records of some 1,400 officials.
This affected areas such as starting salaries, retirement benefits, leave eligibility, extended sick leave fees, and individuals’ eligibility for long service awards.
Another bug involved a problem with the formula used to calculate medical leave wages for employees injured on duty injury leave, affecting around 1,000 people.
These salaries are supposed to be calculated based on an employee’s average monthly earnings, including their monthly salary, bonuses, and overtime pay.
However, it was wrongly calculated on the basis of gross monthly salary.
The latest error was discovered in the program used to sum the payments that some pensioners make when they leave the service.
Generally, retired civil servants with non-pensionable service can choose to return the employer’s share of the contributions from the Central Provident Fund (CPF), in order to obtain annual allowances.
But the wrong CPF rates were entered into the IT system that calculated these rebate amounts, resulting in some 500 people returning more than they should have paid. This money will be returned to the affected people or their dependents, PSD said.
PSD will contact all current and former civil servants who received insufficient compensation due to errors by March 2021.
Individuals who have left the service will receive a registered letter at their last known address, as well as phone calls and home visits.
Those who are not contacted by next March have not been negatively affected by the errors, he said.
People with questions can approach the human resources departments of the government agencies in which they work or were employed. They can also write to [email protected].
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