Parliament has instructed Fenaka Corporation to address the issues identified in a special audit report concerning the recruitment, promotion, salaries and allowances of the company’s employees.
The instruction followed a vote taken during Monday’s sitting of Parliament after the Public Accounts Committee reviewed the report.
The special audit report covers matters relating to the recruitment of employees, promotions, salaries and allowances at Fenaka from 2020 to 2023. The report notes that the company recruited 5,289 employees over a five-year period and found that promotions had been granted in violation of the applicable regulations.
The Auditor General recommended that Fenaka conduct a job analysis to assess the scale of the company’s expanding operations, the duties assigned to employees and their workloads. Based on the findings, the company should determine the number of employees required for its positions and refrain from recruiting additional employees unless the need for further staff has been established.
Following its review of the audit report, the Public Accounts Committee submitted 12 recommendations. These include requiring Fenaka to share details of the progress of its rightsizing exercise and changes to the number of employees with the committee within three months.
The committee also recommended that the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) investigate the matters identified in the audit report and submit its preliminary findings within 30 days. It further recommended that updates on the progress of the investigation be shared with the committee once every month.
In addition, the committee recommended that Fenaka amend its staff regulations to prevent employees from being recruited without vacancies being publicly announced. It proposed that the amended regulations be shared with the committee within three months and also called for the company’s standard operating procedures to be revised.
The committee noted that some employees were promoted in violation of the regulations during 2022 and 2023. It also noted that employees had been recruited under the designation of in-house projects and paid large salaries.
The committee recommended instructing the ACC and the Maldives Police Service to identify those responsible for these actions and take measures against them. It also proposed that details of the investigation be shared with the Public Accounts Committee once every month.
The committee further recommended instructing Fenaka to recover USD 14,896.95 paid to certain employees recruited for in-house projects in excess of the salaries and allowances they were entitled to receive.
Parliament approved the committee’s recommendations with the votes of all 56 members present at the sitting.