19
COPY.
Enclosure Nol.
From
THE AUDIT DEPARTMENT
Hong Kong 16th February, 1939.
To
Honourable Financial Secretary,
Through Accountant-General.
Local Audit Inspection - Passport Office.
I submit herewith a report by Mr. Hamilton
regarding an audit inspection of the Passport Office which
has recently been carried out.
2.
The report indicates that the system of accounting
for revenue in respect of the issue of passports, visas etc.
was defective in that it provided no means whereby suppression
of documents could be prevented or detected, or enabled a
checking officer to satisfy himself that all revenue
collected had been properly accounted for..
3.
The absence of suitable registers for recording in
permanent form and in their proper sequence all applications
for visas, endorsements, certificates and the like, combined
with the lack of suitable cross references between receipts
issued and the relative documents, made misappropriation of
revenue, in respect of all categories dealt with, a
comparatively simple matter.
4.
Visas. To enable me to arrive at definite
conclusions regarding the revenue collected on account of
visas issued, a most laborious check, by a process of
exhaustion, was made, covering the period 9th May 1938 to
the 10th January 1939, with the following results.
(a) 118 application forms were filed but were found
not to have been accounted for, representing
revenue amounting to $1,155.78. (Enclosure III to
report).