Members of the Employment Tribunal received 45 percent of their salary as overtime pay every month from December 2008 to March 2010 without records of overtime hours, according to the tribunal’s audit report for 2010 made public by the Auditor General’s Office last week.
“Members took a total of Rf275,904 (US$17,892) as overtime pay,” the report found. “While as a rule overtime pay is given based on records of work done after official hours and since overtime pay is not part of the salary, this office believes that the overtime pay should not have been given to members without maintaining records.”
The audit report noted that the Employment Tribunal was asked by the Auditor General in March 2010 to clarify the issue of overtime pay with the President’s Office.
The President’s Office informed the tribunal on March 23, 2010 that the overtime pay should be given based on extra hours worked and not exceeding 45 percent of members’ salary.
After the Auditor General raised the issue of the overtime pay granted from December 2008 to March 2010, the President’s Office designated the payments made as fixed overtime pay.
Among other issues noted in the audit report, the tribunal incurred fines for late payment of utility bills and the responsible staff member did not reimburse the office budget.
In addition, attendance records for part-time members of the tribunal were not kept for the period between December 2008 and March 2009.
Moreover, records dating after March 2009 showed that some part-time members worked only three days a month and minutes of tribunal hearings revealed that part-time members did not attend a number of hearings.
Some hearings were meanwhile cancelled because part-time members on the panel could not attend due to other commitments.
Minutes of meetings also revealed that discussions were held upon request by complainants to reconstitute panels with part-time members due to long delays in resolving disputes.
“While adequate services were not received from part-time members, we note that they were given a total of Rf350,271 (US$22,715) as salary during their time as members [of the tribunal],” the report noted.
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