I once reviewed my credit card statement before making payment and noticed an item that was billed twice. The credit card company admitted that it was an error and corrected it.

Since then, I have been reviewing my bills before paying.

I was shocked by the recent news report on how the Public Service Division underpaid around 3,000 civil servants by about $10 million over a period of 20 years (3,000 civil servants affected by errors in records: PSD, Nov 19).

There is a need to understand what went wrong in the system. Without a robust process to ensure accuracy, what might result is a "garbage in, garbage out" system, and this could remain so until someone queries the results.

I have also observed that people seldom verify their pay and benefits. They accept or take for granted that the salary system will always be correct, or they may think that there is no avenue to seek clarification.

We get what we accept.

Are there errors in other such systems? Perhaps it is worthwhile for people to verify data related to them and help identify any gaps, especially in those systems with transactions that are automatically applied.

Andrew Tan Kok Chua