Memo flags discrepancies in overtime claims in Prison Service

One month be­fore it was con­firmed that the T&T Prison Ser­vice (TTPrS) had paid over close to $1 bil­lion in over­time over the past ten years—an in­ter­nal com­mu­nique de­tail­ing pay­ment dis­crep­an­cies point­ing to an al­leged over­time scan­dal sur­faced and has led to a re­view of the cur­rent over­time pol­i­cy.

In the doc­u­ment from with­in the Prison Ser­vice dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 8 and ad­dressed to the Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons; 13 Su­per­in­ten­dents of Pris­ons; two As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dents of Pris­ons; and the Pris­ons Su­per­vi­sor—eight is­sues were high­light­ed as the rea­sons be­hind the de­layed pro­cess­ing of over­time.

Related coverageTTPS Overtime Bill Nears $800 Million, Prompting Calls For Independent Audit13 reports

The doc­u­ment was ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia. Chief among the is­sues raised were in­ac­cu­rate record-keep­ing; cal­cu­la­tion er­rors; ques­tion­able claims re­gard­ing com­pen­sato­ry time off; and sig­na­tures and reg­i­men­tal num­bers sub­mit­ted on over­time sheets and in the Hours of Work Book that could not be dis­cerned.