29.
A second review team, to review the revenue assessment procedures, was established within the Lands Department in November 1984 with the following terms of reference:
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to carry out a critical review of the existing revenue assessment systems and procedures in the Lands Department;
to make recommendations for the establishment of reliable systems and sets of procedures for the assessment of revenue due to the Government under existing land policies; and
to prepare action plans for the implementation of the recommendations.
The report
The review team made its report in March 1985. contained a number of recommendations to eliminate mistakes due to misapplication of instructions and weaknesses in checking and review procedures.
30.
The recommendations made by the review team were considered in April 1985 by a steering group consisting of the Director of Lands, the Director of Accounting Services and senior professional lands staff and it was agreed that a separate review team would be set
soon as possible to implement the recommendations and that progress would be monitored in June and September 1985 with a view to bringing the improvements into operation by 1 October 1985. Unfortunately there has been a slippage in the progress of implementation because staff constraints in the Lands Department have prevented the setting up of the review team. The Director of Lands has recently stated that a further attempt would be made to redeploy staff for this purpose later in 1985.
31.
To summarize, substantial progress has been made in implementing the recommendations of the review team on revenue collection procedures but there is still some way to go before completion. Not a great deal of progress has so far been made in implementing the recommendations of the review team on revenue assessment procedures, although the problem areas have been identified.