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NO CONFIDENTIAL ·
My Lord,
16
2
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
HONG KONG. 3rd July, 1930.
Ausd C
I have the honour to report in accordance
with Colonial Regulation 346 for Your Lordship's decision
a case in which the maintained opinion of the Acting Auditor
has been overruled in a matter relating to the public
accounts.
2.
An officer of the Education Department who
was in receipt of a lodging allowance under General Order 109(7) (b) changed his place of residence, viz., the Young
Men's Christian Association, and went to act as Assistant-
Warden, during the absence of the regular holder of that
post, in one of the hostels in which students at the Hong Kong University are housed. He received no pay for his services in this capacity but paid no rent for his quarters
in the hostel. He applied for the continuation of his
lodging allowance, and this was granted partly on the ground that his unpaid services to the hostel were regarded as the equivalent of rent and partly because it is not possible without an unreasonable inquisition into an officer's private affairs to ascertain in the case of lodging
allowances what the officer's actual expenditure on rent is,
the whole object of the scheme of lodging allowances (which
mak es
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD PASSFIELD,
&c.,
&C.,
&c.