The General Controller of the Republic, Federico Lalane Jose denies that there are 350,000 employees on the Mejia administration payroll. He said it is true that 350,000 checks are being issued, but it is because many employees receive two to four salaries. He said that in many institutions, employees are let go and the cancellation notice is not sent to his or her department, a practice that leads to many irregularities. “First there is a false endorsing of the fired person’s check and the cashing of the check by another. This leads to several tricks. It could be that a new person occupies the post and then it is only a bureaucratic problem. But there are no controls to prevent the checks from being cashed by a slick person in the name of another,” explaind Lalane. To resolve the situation, he said his department has given the ministries until June to send their payrolls with the ID numbers of the employees. He said his department has added 900 auditors, for a total of 1,033 to control the government departments. He commented that there is much anarchy in the government departments due to the lack of registries and proceedings that would ensure the government knows what it owns. He said President Mejia created in January the Unit of Internal Auditors that will work under his department to control the use of funds which today are at the discretion of ministers and department heads.
