Chief secretary to the government Ali Hamsa today said the transferring of public officers who have held sensitive posts in a particular ministry for three to five years will become a monthly occurrence.

"It is an ongoing process. When someone reaches a certain period of three to five years of holding a sensitive post, we will transfer (the official).

"Right now we have done 50 (transfers of public officers). It will become a monthly action," Ali told reporters during the media session following the release of the 2015 auditor-general's report.

When asked about the type of action taken by the government against officers who have committed the same offence more than once, Ali clarified that in most cases, the authorities have found that it was actually different officers who have committed similar offences.

"If they were repeat offenders, I would bring up these issues personally with the secretary-general of the particular ministry and give a special reminder.

"When you look at the offences, some are of a similar trend, maybe it happened in 'ministry A' last year (and) is happening again in 'ministry B'.

"But when we do our analysis, (the offence committed) does not involve the same officer. So we are not transferring the problem from 'ministry A' to ministry B' by transferring officers," Ali said.

He added that despite the decreasing number of punitive warnings to officers who have committed offences - from 149 warnings in 2013 to 43 at present - there was still room for improvement among the ministries.

"I have asked all the ministries' secretaries-general to look into it... There are some improvements, but I am still not satisfied," Ali added.