Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ15: Payment checking safeguards by Department of Health
Following is a question by the Hon Ng Leung-sing and a written reply by
the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in the Legislative
Council today (January 22):
Question:
In February 2008, a staff member of the Department of Health (DH) was
convicted of embezzling $13,710,000. The authorities indicated
thereafter that the department had adopted measures to strengthen its
internal control of payment and accounting procedures. According to the
General Revenue Account as at March 31, 2013, the authorities are still
recovering this sum of money. In this connection, will the Government
inform this Council:
(1) of the latest progress in recovering this sum of money, and why the
sum has not yet been written off; and
(2) whether it regularly examines if the department concerned has
earnestly enforced the aforesaid measures to improve the internal
control?
Reply:
President,
(1) The Police commenced investigation immediately after the incident
was discovered by Department of Health (DH) in 2007. The officer
concerned was subsequently charged with false accounting and sentenced
to five years' imprisonment in 2008. According to the information from
the Police, there was no evidence showing that the officer concerned
possessed any valuable assets. In order to recover the sum embezzled, DH
took legal actions against the officer concerned and instigated civil
proceedings in the High Court through the Department of Justice (DoJ). A
judgment in favour of the Government was obtained in April 2010.
Subsequently, DoJ successfully obtained from the court a bankruptcy
order against the officer concerned in February 2011. The bankruptcy
order is valid for four years during which the Official Receiver's
Office will recover the arrears from the debtor in accordance with its
established recovery procedures. Upon completion of all recovery
procedures within the validity period and after exhaustion of all
feasible means to recover the arrears, the Government will proceed to
write off the outstanding sum in accordance with existing procedures.
(2) The DH has reminded all staff of its Finance Office of the need to
strictly comply with government regulations and instructions in
processing payments. In particular, all officers involved in payment
processing have been reminded to ensure that claims for payments are
adequately supported, properly certified and correctly accounted. To
this end, a comprehensive checklist on payment checking has been issued
to provide the staff with practical assistance in dealing with matters
relating to authorisation of payment vouchers. Circulars have also been
issued to provide a summary of major points to be observed by budget
holders and subject officers in arranging payments. The checklist and
the circulars are re-circulated once every six months as a reminder for
the staff concerned.
As a further safeguard, the DH has introduced sample post-payment
checking by budget holders on selected payments charged to their votes.
Its Internal Audit Section has also revised its work plan to conduct
more regular checks on payment vouchers and procedures to ensure that
the checks and balances are functioning as anticipated.
Ends/Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Issued at HKT 15:02
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