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File No. 3941/46.
Colonial Secretariat,
Hong Kong.
25th October, 1947.
SECRETARIAT ADMINISTRATIVE CIRCULAR NO.17.
Leave prior to Retirement
A number of officers have amassed considerable leave balances owing, for the most part, to the fact that they were prevented, by internment or other causes arising out of the late war, from taking leave at the proper time.
2*
It is not the intention that such officers should be penalised by being restricted to 8 months' leave on retirement and the following rules have therefore been formulated as a temporary measure.
36
Older officers who have had insufficient service since the war to enable them to dispose of their abnormal leave balances before reaching the age of compulsory retirement will be permitted to take the whole of their earned leave balance on their last leave prior to retiroment. In this respect G.0. 174 may be regarded as temporarily inoperative.
4.
Younger officers with some years of service before them will generally be permitted to take slightly more than the normal soven months' leave so that their excoss leave balanco will be gradually worked off during the romainder of their service.
5.
Officers with large leave balances who for reasons unconnected with service exigencies deliberately chose to abstain from taking leave for some years before the war will be liable to have any accumulated balance of leave as at lst January, 1936, forfeited unless they can show that it was impossible to take such leave when it was due. In this connection it is relevant to observe that leave is granted for recreational and recuperative reasons and, to be beneficial, should be taken at regular intervals.
To
Heads of Departments.
Ey Command,
D. M. MacDOUGALL,
Colonial Secretary.