Ministry employees fail to punch card

Many civil servants and workers do not punch in or out at the Transport Department, and reports suggest their superiors know about it and cover up even as people show up late.

According to daily Phileleftheros, the Transport ministry had been looking into allegations that a large number of state employees fail to clock in and out of work by punching a card. A letter sent to the Transport department regarding an office in Limassol was said to apply to another district as well as its central offices.

A probe into the matter revealed that some workers appear to go to work as late as 9:30am while others never punch their card, including both exempt staff as well as hourly wage earners.

In one case, at the Transport department’s office in Famagusta district, there is no punch card machine, with ministry officials asking for a full list of employees who do not punch card, both exempt and non-exempt staff, as well as the reason why they don’t clock their hours.

A response from the Transport department indicated that many workers have to show up at different locations in the morning for work, making it impracticable for them to go the department just to punch a card and head to their work for the day.

But Phileleftheros said it had information that some workers have not been punching a card for two years and cannot be identified because their superiors provide cover for them.

The ministry had issued memos within the Transport department to remind workers to adhere to the work schedule and working hours, suggesting the matter is still unresolved from an administrative point of view.

It is not the first time that the Ministry of Transport and Public Works has been in the hot seat.

Other cases of workers not showing up for work included a man in Larnaca who was seconded in the Public Works department from Nicosia to Larnaca and ended up spending a lot of his time at the beach or hanged around his wife’s business in a Larnaca suburb.