CO885-5 — Page 15

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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C.O. 885/5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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bank having a Government account, should be required to pay his receipts into the bank daily, and in the case of any sum of considerable amount immediately after receipt.

10. If there should be no such bank at the place of receipt, the receiver of public revenue should remit his receipts to the nearest Government bank, or if there is no such bank in the Colony, to the officer to whom he accounts as speedily as means of commu- nication will admit.

11. The receipts of the banks for every sum of money paid into the account of the Treasurer or Receiver-General, whether by a Government officer or other person, should be forthwith transmitted to the Treasurer or Receiver-General by the officer by whom, or on whose order, the payment is made.

12. Payments out of public money should be made, as far as practicable, by cheques signed by the Treasurer or Receiver-General, and wherever it is found necessary to advance moneys to officers, or to allow them to retain moneys for the purposes of dis- bursement, the amount advanced or allowed to be retained should be kept within the narrowest possible limits.

13. Wherever it is practicable more than one officer should be cognizant of and take part every receipt and payment of public money.

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14. All public money and stamps in the custody of any officer (except such limited amounts as he may be allowed to retain in his own hands for disbursement or issue) should be kept in safes, having two or more different locks, the keys of which should be kept by different persons, in whose joint presence only the safes should be opened.

15.-(II.) Of the means of detection the most important is a prompt and efficient audit. The Committee are of opinion that all accounts should be audited within three months at the latest, and they would strongly recommend that the staff of the Audit Department in every Colony should be kept at a sufficient strength to enable this to be done. In several of the cases brought before the Committee, the audit appears to have been lamentably inefficient and greatly in arrear, and in one case at least there appears to have been no audit at all.

16. It may appear superfluous to observe that a written receipt should be required as a voucher for every payment, and that the affixing of marks to receipts by recipients who cannot write should be attested by witnesses, but at least one case has come under the notice of the Committee in which these obvious requirements have been disregarded.

17. Next in importance to an efficient audit as a check upon defalcation is the practice of frequent examination by competent and independent persons at uncertain periods and without previous notice of the books of officers entrusted with the receipt or custody of public money or property and of the cash, stamps, or stores in their possession; this is enjoined in the case of treasurers by the Colonial regulations, and the Committee recommend that it should be extended to all accountants to the Government of every grade.

18. In more than one instance defalcations have escaped detection through the practice of giving informal receipts for taxes or other revenue. Every such receipt should be on a printed form, bearing a printed,number taken from a book with a counterfoil, bearing the same number on which the person giving the receipt should enter the name of the person making the payment, the amount paid, and the date.

19. Every collector of revenue should be supplied with a separate book of receipts and counterfoils for each head of revenue collected by him, and should, as in the case of collectors of income tax in England, be liable to a penalty for giving any other form of receipt temporarily or otherwise.

20. Measures should be taken, by affixing notices in the collectors' offices and by printed notices on the receipts and by any other means that may be found effectual, to impress upon the public the necessity of taking none but the authorised forms of receipt. Licenses also should be numbered and taken from books with counterfoils.

21. Collection of revenue by means of stamps affords a security against defalcation, if the stocks of stamps and stamped forms in the hands of distributors are frequently examined, and should be adopted wherever it is found practicable, especially in the case of court fees and licenses.

22. Accountants to the Government should be required to render their accounts, including those of their sub-accountants, at the shortest possible intervals, in no case exceeding a month, and every case of delay in rendering an account should be forthwith reported to the Governor.

23. Collectors of revenue should, with each account, furnish a list of public debtors in arrear in their respective districts, and payment of the arrears so returned should be promptly demanded, not only for the protection of the revenue but also with the view

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of checking the correctness of the return and bringing to light any payment omitted in

the account.

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24. For the purpose of checking the accounts of collectors of revenue, the particulars of the revenue receivable by them should, whenever the nature of the case will admit, be ascertained by independent officers and returned to the Treasurer or Receiver- General, and to the Auditor-General; in the case of license duties the police should be required to furnish to the best of their power signed lists of all persons required to take out licenses of any kind.

25. As a general rule payments of revenue not made into a bank should be made at the office of the person authorised to receive them or at some place at which he attends at stated times for the purpose of such receipt.

26. Several cases have recently occurred of misappropriation by clerks of magistrates, or of district courts, of fines and other moneys received in their respective courts, and questions have been raised as to the responsibility in such cases. The Committee recommend that the magistrate or district judge be made responsible for all revenue properly receivable in his court. Without diminishing the responsibility of the magis- trates or judges, the clerks should be also held responsible for all public moneys actually received by them. Entries of all fines imposed and recognizances estreated, and other payments to the Crown ordered by magistrates or district judges should be made by the magistrate or judge and by the clerk in separate books.

27. (III.) For the protection of the State from loss by defalcations, and also as a means of deterring officers from committing the offence, security to an amount adequate to cover the largest sum of public money (including stamps) which may reasonably be expected to be in his possession or custody at any time should be given to the Crown by every public officer entrusted with the receipt or custody of public money, such security should consist of the personal bond of the officer, with bonds of at least two sufficient suretics or the bond of a guarantee society approved by the Government. In case of the death of a surety, or of his becoming in the opinion of the Government insufficient, the officer should be required forthwith to substitute the bond of another surety.

28. In every case of default the securities should invariably be enforced.

29. Lastly, the Committee would strongly urge the importance of rigorously adhering to the rule that no defalcation, however small, should be allowed to go unpunished.

October 22, 1879.

(Signed)

EDWARD WINGFIELD (Chairman).

WILLIAM C. F. ROBINSON.

W. C. SARGEAUNT.

WILLIAM ROBINSON.

E. E. BLAKE.

FREDERICK GRAHAM.

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