1. No employment contract or formal appointment for the Part-time research participants
According to the audit procedure for Personnel Cost, FP7 Grant Agreement – Annex VII – Form D version 5 dated 2012.12.14, clause 3, it requires the auditor to obtain the employment contracts of the employees selected and compare with the standard employment contract used by the beneficiary (the grantee). We found that employment contracts were provided for only 2 out of 10 research participants at the Faculty of Tropical Medicine and 1 out of 6 research participants at the Faculty of Science. That was because they were contracted particularly for the project. The remaining 13 worked full time at their bases and part time for the project, their employment contracts were only available for their underlying permanent hiring and kept at their bases. Having no hiring agreements with the research participants may lead to a risk of over payment of compensation.
Recommendation
The key responsible researcher should ensure that all research participants were bound by employment contracts or formal appointment letters. It should contain the key information of compensation, working hours or working conditions, and purpose of the engagement or responsibilities or work scope.
Prompt rectification for this matter is highly recommended.