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Police Reward Fund: As FDs soar over Rs. 9bn, officers are short-changed
View(s):The Police Reward Fund held fixed deposits worth Rs 9.6bn at the end of 2018 and has invested more than it should while paying out fewer incentives than prescribed, the National Audit Office (NAO) says.
The Inspector General of Police (IGP) decreed in 2016 that 70 percent of the Fund must be used annually as normal rewards to incentivise deserving police officers. A further 20 percent goes towards a category called IGP’s rewards. Only ten percent of the Fund must be invested.
The average paid out as rewards in the three years from 2016 to 2018, however, was just 46 percent. And the percentage invested–mainly by way of fixed deposits (FDs) in State banks–ranged between 37 and 48 percent during the same period.
The FDs are maintained at the People’s Bank, the Bank of Ceylon and the National Savings Bank. In 2015, they amounted to Rs 5.5bn but ballooned in 2018 to Rs 9.8bn.
Payment criteria have not been amended to suit modern requirements, the NAO found. There are payment delays while certain police officers did not receive their dues. There are also issues of accounting the income.
Income to the Fund from traffic fines improved from four percent in 2015 to 41 percent in 2018. But payment of rewards within the same period ranged from nine to 14 percent.
Circulars related to the payment of rewards have not been updated for the past seven years. The NAO especially observed that, compared to the revenue credited to the Fund through the effective service of police officers, the payments were at “a very low level”.
In 2018, for instance, Rs 940mn was deposited into the Fund from traffic revenue but only Rs 169mn–or 18 percent of this–was paid as rewards. The previous year, it was 26 percent but it never rose above 37 percent in five years.
There is no consistency in how the rewards are decided, the NAO said. Fixed rates last revised in 2011 are paid as motor traffic incentives and changing rates for normal rewards. And there is no prescribed time period for processing of reward applications. It could take two to five years between when a voucher is prepared by an Officer-in-Charge (OIC) and when it is paid.
A police officer who is transferred or retired sometimes does not receive the message of his reward and, therefore, does not collect it. Where an officer conducts a special raid, half his reward is paid before litigation and the rest, after. By December 2018, the value of such unpaid rewards was Rs 75mn. Some arrears were as old as 15 years.
When a transfer takes place, they must be notified at their new location to collect the reward. If it is not done, the money returns to Police Headquarters. Rewards payable to the deceased or those who have left the service also goes back to Headquarters.
In 2016 alone, Rs 76mn was returned by 37 police divisions owing to delay in preparing and recommending reward applications as well as non-payment.