Health Ministry firm on using fingerprint machines

by Anura Maitipe

The decision taken by the Ministry of Health to introduce fingerprint machines to mark attendance of State health sector employees with the circular issued by the Ministry of Public Administration will not be changed, Minister of Health Nimal Siripala de Silva told the 'Sunday Observer' .

The Minister said it is the rule of public administration that all government servants must mark their attendance on fingerprint machine.

The machine was first introduced in the Health Ministry. It is the rule of the Ministry that from the Health Secretary to the minor employee attendance should be marked on the fingerprint machine.

Therefore hospital workers cannot be exempted and they too must adhere to the rule that had been already implemented by the Ministry of Health, he said.

The Health Ministry spends over Rs. 2,200 million annually on overtime for health workers. In 2006 the expenditure exceeded Rs. 3,000 million.

There is no problem on paying overtime to those who work additional hours, but it has been revealed that some workers have drawn overtime payments by marking false times in the attendance sheets, he said.

During the discussion with the Deputy Health Minister the Trade Union leaders admitted that there were some racketeers who had drawn money for overtime work without being present in the hospital.

It were dishonest employees who feared introducing finger print machines to State hospitals, he said.

There are over 190,000 workers in the State health sector and quality of service needs to be improved by modernising the existing administrative structure with an efficient financial management system to minimise waste of money and to maximise the quality of services, he said.