AN officer working under the Economic Stimulus Package (ESP) has been disciplined for discrepancies in the implementation of the funds.
This was revealed by the Chairman of the ESP Committee McKinnie Dentana on Sunday during the fortnightly talk-back show.
He said, the officer was reassigned to another department after his was caught.
He reminded the public and recipients of ESP to report suspicious cases of discrepancies.
“If you find any discrepancy in terms of the implementations of the funds, please come and report your concerns to the ESP team,” he said.
Mr. Dentana who is also the Permanent Secretary (PS) of the Ministry of Finance said, last year in November he had to reassign an officer from the ESP unit to another department for discrepancies relating to ESP implementation.
He said such action was taken to ensure accountability and transparency in terms of implementation of the fund.
Mr. Dentana encourages recipients of ESP to report any case to them rather than complaining.
“There is no value for you to make so much noise but fail to report any case to us,” he said.
Its understood, a number of recipients, have also raised concern over the amount of funds they received which does not match the amount they applied for.
Meanwhile, the chairman said more than 3400 recipients have been approved to receive their ESP share.
He said the names of more than 2100 successful recipients have been uploaded to the ESP webpage last week.
The names of further more than 1300 successful recipients will be uploaded later this week.
All successful recipients have been asked to contact the ESP team to get their payments.
Mr. Dentana said in April, a review and monitoring of all successful recipients will be conducted so that a report is compiled.
All the recipients are expected to start working on their projects once they receive their funding support, he said.
By LACHLAN EDDIE
NEWSROOM, HONIARA