The government recovered over 99 per cent of the S $370 million wrongly paid to companies as part of the Jobs Support Scheme. Second Minister for Finance Indranee Rajah said during the Ministry of Finance's Committee of Supply debate on Wednesday Mar 2 that wage support grants were erroneously paid to about 5,400 companies in October 2020 due to mistakes in computing the disbursements. After the COVID 19 circuit breaker period, there were errors in the compilation and processing of business reopening dates, authorities said in a media release last year.
Ms Indranee said that the Government has struck a balance between keeping processes simple and putting in place controls to prevent abuse or errors when it tries to roll out such schemes quickly, as a result of a question from Member of Parliament Foo Mee Har PAP-West Coast on the controls and governance for pandemic-related support schemes.
She said that a risk assessment was done for the JSS. For cases with higher fraud risk, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore IRAS required firms to authenticate their CPF contributions before releasing payouts.
She said that the IRAS has denied payments to employers who attempt to abuse the scheme and has referred 14 cases to the police for investigation.
There were some mistakes that were deeply regretted, given the enormous complexity of the project and the need for urgent disbursement across the board through JSS. When such an instance was discovered, we immediately took immediate efforts to rectify it, she said.
We recovered over 99 per cent of the S $370 million JSS overpayment discovered earlier in the day, and are working on recovering the rest. The Government is aware of the pressures and challenges faced by companies as a result of the pandemic and the disruption of global supply chains and business activities.
The Government has made adjustments with changing circumstances because of the impact of the epidemic, and continues to provide support for the people who have been affected by the pandemic, Ms Indranee said.
We will continue to monitor the situation going into 2022 and adjust our measures as necessary.