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SPECIAL RULES TO BE OBSERVED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUDIT OF ACCOUNTS OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENT RAILWAYS.
63. The accounts of Colonial Government Railways are sub- ject generally to the provisions of the Colonial Regulations, and their audit will be conducted as nearly as may be on the principles which obtain with regard to all other colonial accounts. 64. In relation to their audit in the Colonial Audit Depart- ment, the accounts of railway earnings may be separated into two classes, namely, those which record (a) receipts collected in the first instance at stations and remitted daily to the Accountant's Department; and (b) receipts collected directly by the Accountant's Department. With regard to the former the responsibility for the detailed examination of the station accounts rests with the examining branch of the Railway Accountant's Department, subject to test inspection only by the local audit staff, while, in the case of the latter, the examination conducted by the local audit staff will be, as a rule, of a detailed character.
65. The examination by the Auditor of the accounts of traffic receipts by stations will, therefore, be directed to seeing (a) that a satisfactory system of accounts exists; (b) that all reasonable safeguards against irregularity are provided; (c) that the internal departmental examination, under the direction of the Railway Accountant, of the details in connection with the collection of revenue from coaching and goods traffic, &c., is continuously and efficiently performed; and (d) that the examination conducted in the examining branch of the Accountant's Department is supplemented by a thorough and continuous local examination of the station accounts by Officers of the railway acting as Travelling Inspectors of Accounts.
66. In order that the Auditor's inspection of the railway departmental examination may be facilitated, it is important that a Progress Register (which should always be available for inspection by the Auditor) should be kept in the Accountant's Office. This Progress Register should contain a complete list of the various accounts and returns which require to be inspected or rendered for examination, and should show clearly the actual progress made month by month in the performance of the depart- mental examination.
67. In addition to the regular inspection of this register the Auditor will ascertain, by frequent test examinations and by occasional local inspections of the station accounts, whether the railway examination is efficiently and thoroughly performed. The extent of the Auditor's tests and the frequency of his inspec tions will necessarily depend upon the ascertained efficiency or otherwise of the railway departmental examination, and while, therefore, his scrutiny should be sufficiently searching to enable him to form a reliable opinion on this point, it is not intended that his examination should in any way supersede the work for which the management of the railway is responsible.
68. It is important that any negligence or delay that may be observed by the Auditor in the performance of the work of the examining branch of the Accountant's Department or of the
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