NWRHA says no ghost gangs

The North West Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) has refuted claims of “ghost gangs within the organisation.” In a statement last week, the NWRHA said a list prepared July last year by the NWRHA human resources department, showed it has more than 4,000 employees. This figure coincides with the finding of an internal audit which was done on the authority’s recruitment of staff for June 2003 and June 2004.

Three weeks ago the media published excerpts of the audit conducted by Harriram Laloo, the NWRHA internal auditor, which reported that the total number of permanent positions shown on the listing provided was 1,690, but the payroll showed approximately 4,000 employees were being paid monthly. Laloo also highlighted the absence of interview assessment forms for workers, overpayments, alterations made to employees’ term and conditions, without evidence being presented that approval was given by the human resource committee/board of directors. Recommendations were made to correct each of the matters identified. 

In its defence the NWRHA said the HR department developed a list of permanent employees “first” and this accounted for the 1,690 permanent employees. “However, the larger lists of temporary and contract workers were developed by July 2004. Part of this process involved validation of the payroll information and all employees have been accounted for.” The NWRHA said 129 employees were in administration, 686 auxiliary staff, 482 clerical staff, 359 medical, 1,490 nurses, 280 para medical, 49 technical and 752 daily rated staff.

The total staff is 4,227. The NWRHA said the audit was done to “determine whether there was compliance with approved policies and procedures” and assist the NWRHA management in being more effective  by appraising existing controls and making recommendations for improvements where necessary.  While providing no details on how it was implementing the auditor’s recommendations, the NWRHA on January 19 issued a statement saying it “accepted the findings and was “in the process of implementing the recommendations.”