Chunghwa Post recovers NT$380 million in overpaid military wages

Taipei, Sept. 12 (CNA) Chunghwa Post Co. has recovered NT$380 million (US$11.82 million) in overpaid wages remitted to the accounts of more than 10,000 military personnel earlier this month, the state-owned postal and financial service provider said Thursday.

The company thanked the Ministry of National Defense for its assistance in recouping the overpaid wages, indicating it was caused by an error that led to the payments being processed twice on Sept. 3 and Sept. 4 at a post office on Minquan Road in Taichung, in its statement released on Thursday.

Chunghwa Post is working on staff training and improving procedures to prevent such errors from happening again, the company said.

According to the acting chief of the Taichung Post Office, Wang Yueh-chen (王月珍), the wages of 10,694 military personnel were paid on Sept. 3, but because of an internal error involving related documents, a different supervisor approved the wage payments a second time the following day.

The Minquan Road post office began tracing the overpayments on Sept. 5 and managed to retrieve most of the money, with the exception of NT$410,000 in 12 payments as of Sept. 7, Wang told CNA.

In cases when the payment had already been withdrawn and could not be retrieved, the post office indicated it would deduct the amount from the next wage payment, she said.

On Wednesday, Chunghwa Post Chairman Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) told reporters in Taipei that only one overpayment had not been retrieved, before the company statement released the following day.