The Fiji National Provident Fund has issued a warning to its stakeholders that it will take legal action against those who engage in fraudulent activities.
FNPF has concluded its investigation of an employer, whose chartered accountant tampered with a receipt provided by the Fund, in a bid to escape paying the surcharge for late contribution payments.
The issue came to light when the employer queried a surcharge penalty by FNPF, providing support evidence of a receipt for the payment of April 2016 FNPF contributions.
FNPF says the receipt provided by the employer was dated May 31st, however FNPF’s record of the same receipt showed that it was paid on June 13th.
FNPF’s Internal Audit team delved further into the case and found that the receipt provided to FNPF was manipulated by the accounting firm to conceal late contribution payment.
Chief Operating Officer Jaoji Koroi reiterates that FNPF does not condone fraud.
Koroi says they have determined that they were given a document that had been tampered, and this is an offence under the FNPF Act.
He says employers are aware that they are required by law to pay members contributions on time and any delay will result in a penalty surcharge.
Koroi says that FNPF has often been flexible with employers in the past especially when they were unable to pay contributions on time, however, it cannot continue to give them allowances at the expense of the member.
Employers are surcharged $100 per employee when they fail to pay FNPF contributions on time and this will effectively be imposed from 1st July, 2017.
