Audit General's Office admits need to improve disbursement process

AGO acknowledges the need to improve the documentation of processes and risk assessments.

The Auditor-General's Office (AGO) has highlighted the effective measures and controls put in place by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) to ensure grant payouts were given to the intended recipients. 

These measures included pre-disbursement audits for correct disbursements of various grants, anti-gaming frameworks to detect and deter potential gaming behaviour, IT systems for automatic grant disbursements, regular senior management reporting to the Budget Implementation Committee (BIC), and good IT governance practices.

In response to the areas for improvement identified by AGO, MOF and IRAS have taken immediate steps to rectify the issues. 

AGO acknowledges the need to improve documentation of processes and risk assessments, and they will ensure better documentation for future schemes, despite fast-moving developments and time constraints during the COVID-19 crisis. 

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Additionally, they have addressed lapses in operational processes and initiated investigations to recover any over-payments, which amount to less than 0.5% of total payouts across all three schemes.

MOF and IRAS recognise the importance of continuously strengthening internal processes and have implemented additional policies and procedures to achieve this goal. 

They are committed to learning from these experiences, improving their practices, and better preparing for future crisis situations with a strong teamwork and can-do spirit.