Do you have an elderly family member who is on a pay roll of the older persons? Do they receive their payments in time? Well, various challenges have been there, which Auditor General Edward Ouko wants them done away. His office wants the State to carry out a review of the payment process to the Older Persons Cash Transfer (OPCT) so as to identify major bottlenecks that lead to delay in releasing payments and also improve the process for notifying beneficiaries on payment dates.
The office further wants the government to enforce the stringent timelines given in the operational manual and make the requisition of funds from National Treasury earlier before months of payment.
In its audit on the performance of the fund since its inception in 2007, Auditor General Edward Ouko reveals that the rate of unpaid amounts have been relatively increasing as more beneficiaries are enrolled to the programme.
Other challenges are increasing uncollected amounts by the beneficiaries, commission being paid on unpaid beneficiaries, overpaid bank commission, delays in payments to beneficiaries and late disbursement of funds by the exchequer at the National Treasury to the Social Protection Headquarters.
OPCT payments are made to beneficiaries on a bi-monthly basis beginning the first week in the months of September, November, January, March, May and the last week of June in each financial year.