Skip to main content

The resurrection



We had in our employ a senior clerk who was a bachelor in his forties. 


He was always short of money. To make matters worse, he was in charge of the petty cash amounting to about RM500.00. The petty cash was monies entrusted to the Labour Department to pay South Indian laborers  who called at the office and declared that they had no money to return home to India.  As he was the sole employee we could not cause surprise checks and on days of Audit he would ensure that everything is in order. Only after the inspections would we know that he had taken temporary loans from colleagues to top up the petty cash box. 


On one of my surprise checks I discovered no payments had been given to an elderly man who used to call at the office regularly for about three months. I inquired why the particular  elder had not collected his dues. The clerk replied that the elder had passed away and no payments could be made. I told him to make a note in the register. 


I forgot  this episode being busy with my other duties. After a few months I noticed  payments were still  being made to the same  old man and asked the clerk to explain the mystery. He told me he has no explantion as he had not seen the old man and the money was paid in his absence by the Officers of the Department. He said he would pay a visit to the elder’s house to verify the situation. A few weeks later when I raised the same issue he said the old man had indeed passed away and he did pass a huge sum of money being arrears due to the old man to his siblings. He produced a sheet of paper where there were scribblings  in Tamil and told me they were acknowledgement of payments received by the family members.


 I was not satisfied with the explanation and unknown to the clerk despatched two officers to the house to verify what was going on. The officers reported that the old man was still alive and denied receiving any money from the Department. Every time the officer came to his house he would give him a RM50.00 note from his own pocket, but he was never was given any slip to acknowledge the payment.


With this information I confronted the clerk. He admitted that he had made use of the money and pleaded for mercy. He was nearing retirement age and would lose his right to pension if action was taken against him. He promised restitution of the money the following week.The following week we heard he had taken a co-op loan to settle the amount he owed the elderly person. We checked with the elder and he confirmed receipt of the monies that was due to him. Considering the circumstances and the restitution we forgave him and allowed him to retire.


All content (c) Ganapathy Ramasamy, mynameisgana@blogspot.com


Image of Indian labourers working in a Malayan rubber estate under the watch of a Kangani is used for pictorial purposes only and is (c) of ehm.my



  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My first car

  After my Higher School Certificate examination, I was appointed as a labour officer. This job paid well enough that I could finally afford a car for work. It involved a fair amount of travelling, the allowances for which could well cover my petrol bills. This first car was a second hand Volkswagen 1200, reg. AF 1085 in white. However I had just learnt driving and was not confident in taking out the car for my duties. So for the first few weeks, a friend of mine agreed to be a co-driver while I learnt to drive in my neighbourhood.  Once I gained confidence, I told my friend that I was confident and he need not assist me while I drove around. The first day of independent driving, I reversed into a child’s tricycle. Fortunately the child had abandoned the bike in my driveway and went away to look for other pursuits that drew her attention. There was a dent to the rear of my vehicle    that would require some money to have it fixed back into its original shape.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pigeons always look for variety

One of my female pigeons left her nest and moved over to my neighbors pigeon Coop where she had taken a fancy for a male pigeon. I spoke to my neighbor and told him I shall trap my pigeon later that evening. But my neighbor like a budding lawyer told me “possession is 9/10th” of the law and since the pigeon was in his coop it is rightfully his. Now when I feed my pigeons I usually give a loud whistle for them to attend to their food. I told my brother to spray some green peas on the ground. My house was about 5 houses away from my neighbors where my pigeon had sought refuge with her boyfriend. When I gave a whistle my pigeon with 3 other pigeons left my neighbors coop to peck food at my coop. The neighbor was stunned seeing his 3 pigeons heading to my house. He mellowed and asked me to allow him to go over to my coop later in the evening to trap his birds. I used his same words and turned down his pleas despite his apologies. In the evening when the birds got into the coop I caught hol...
Post a Comment
Read more

SENIOR CITIZENS AND THE QR CODE

Age is certainly catching up for me and my friends of my generation. Technology is moving fast and I find we are no longer able to fit into the fast paced modern age. The other day Ben, my friend and I set out to Bukit Damansara to meet up with an Investment banker. Both of us are retirees. I am in the 80's while Ben is a lot younger. We have been residents of KL for a long time, used to Pusat Bandar Damansara area as we had worked in that area many years ago. We decided to take a Grab to go to Bukit Damansara. As we got into the car and buckled up with the safety belt, the driver told us to scan the QR code a small piece of plastic stuck to each side of the window. It took some effort as the sticker was slightly bigger than a postage stamp while we are used to a big placard attached to the back of the front seat. It was quite a challenge to scan it as the car was in motion through some humps and bumps. To our surprise Pusat Bandar Damansara wasn't the place we knew. Our office...
1 comment
Read more