SaskTel lost $47K from alleged WCB fraud, loss of public money report says

SaskTel is seeking legal action against a former employee to recoup almost $47,000 in an alleged fraudulent Worker's Compensationclaim.

The employee received full wage-loss benefits for the WCB claim, but in the meantime was working part-time with another employer, according to the most recent quarterly report on losses of public money within Crown corporations.

Employees who are approved for WCB claims are paid by SaskTel, which is then reimbursed by the WCB but in this case, when WCB discovered the employee was working elsewhere, it declined to reimburse SaskTel.

When the Crown corporation told the employee it would deductfrom wages to recoup the loss, the employee resigned.

After this incident, which occurred from May 2018 to Aug 2019, SaskTel is now reviewing its practice of having WCB pay benefits it approves directly to employees.

Time sheet fraud, gas theft

Two SaskPower workers are no longer employed by the company after the discovery of time sheet fraud and gas theft resulting in an estimated loss of $53,730.

The fraud and gas theft happened between January 2019 and November 2020.

One of the employees resigned and the other worker was fired, but SaskPower has yet to recover any of the money.

Crown corporations had just over $100,000 in losses of public money in the quarterly report, which covers Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020.