OVER 68 per cent or S$250 million has been recovered out of the S$370 million in excess Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) payments that were mistakenly made, as of the first week of May, said Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing.

In written responses to Parliamentary questions on Monday night, Mr Chan said the ministry has reached out to the larger affected firms and "secured their commitment" to return an additional S$83 million.

The median and mean amount overpaid to firms was S$3,300 and S$69,000 respectively. Mr Chan added that the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) will first offset the excess amount against the future JSS payouts for businesses. Thereafter, businesses will be informed of any outstanding excess amount to be returned following their final JSS payout.

"Businesses that face cashflow difficulties may approach us for assistance. Instalment payment arrangements will be available for businesses that need them," Mr Chan said.

Based on the ministry's records, no firms which received the erroneous payments have been wound up so far.

In explaining how the erroneous JSS payments and foreign worker levy waiver and rebate amount occurred, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat noted in written responses on Monday night that they arose from "source data errors" in the firms' reopening dates.

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The trade and industry ministry had run sampling checks before passing the data to the Central Provident Fund Board for the computation of the payout. However, the sampling checks did not pick up the error, which affected about 4 per cent of beneficiary firms, said Mr Heng.

When asked about the measures that the government has in place to ensure the various Covid-19 schemes are disbursed properly, he said that there are a "series of checks" in place for all Covid-19 support measures to ensure the grants are designed for and allocated to the intended beneficiaries.

These checks are across the design, implementation and post-disbursement stages, in addition to regular audits that are conducted on grant disbursement to ensure proper accounting.

In the design stage, the scheme owner sets clear policy guidance on the target beneficiaries of the grant, the benefits they will receive, and the framework for assessing appeals. This is followed by the implementation stage where the implementing agency ensures correct payout computation for each beneficiary and oversees the accurate and timely disbursement of funds.

In the post-disbursement stage, independent audits and data analytics are carried out to detect any anomalies and verify that funds were channelled appropriately to the intended beneficiaries, said Mr Heng.

"For instance, Iras conducted post-disbursement checks, comparing the amount of JSS disbursed against past payout quantum to check for any anomalies. It was during this process that the errors in reopening dates were first detected," he highlighted in his responses.

In addition to current measures put in place by scheme owners, implementing agencies will now pay "specific attention" to the different Covid-19 support schemes as part of their internal audit.

"Since the incident, MTI has worked with MOF, MOM and IRAS to carefully examine and rectify the processes. Additional checks and steps have been instituted to prevent similar occurrences," Mr Heng added.

He noted how the compilation of reopening dates is no longer done manually and is now coded with rules that have been reviewed and tested. An external auditor has also been engaged to check and verify opening dates.