It's hard times all around - and rumours abound that Government may have to consider paycuts for the public service. But, instead of that, yesterday, a lot of them got double up on their bi-monthly salary!
An internal message from the Accountant General's office which came to us avi text yesterday says, quote, "It has come to our attention that public officers who receive their salary through Atlantic Bank Ltd have been paid twice and in some cases, no pay. Kindly advise staff under your supervision that if they received payment twice, they should not touch the portion that does not belong to them.
The Accountant General's office will have to recover all those funds erroneously paid." End quote.
But, speaking with the Financial Secretary Jose Waight this evening, he said, quote, "the GOB's account was only charged once!"
He adds that the problem did not originate at the Treasury Department and is, quote, "wholly within one of the commercial banks and not from their end."
Waight says he is sure "the commercial bank can recover the over payments by simply freezing the affected accounts and then reversing the duplicate or triplicate payments."
