CO129-246 - Acting Governor Fleming - 1890 [8-9] — Page 256

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Enclosure 2 உ

1390

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HONGKONG, 30th June, 1890.

(e.) That in breach of your duty as Audit Clerk you passed the following false entry, viz.: August, 1889, "Loan from the Government Branch Offices $9,000" and that you passed the subsequent monthly accounts in which the said false entry was not debited.

(f) That on various occasions you passed loans from Imperial Funds which were entered in the Cash Book, although instructed that such loans were not to be inade, and that you passed subsequent monthly accounts in which no debit entries were made of such loans.

(g.) That you failed to obey the instructions of your superior officer, Mr. SILVA, to see that the amounts paid into the Treasury corresponded with the amounts of which the Crown Agents were advised and that in consequence thereof frauds on a large scale took place.

(7.) That in breach of your duty as Audit Clerk you passed as correct a balance sheet prepared by the Superintendent of the Money Order Office in April, 1889, and purporting to show that when all sums due by the Australian Colonies had been collected the accounts of the said Superintendent would be in order when as a matter of fact you failed to check some of the items in the said balance sheet and the whole balance sheet was misleading and deceptive.

(i) That the examinations which it was your duty to make as Audit Clerk were generally made very much in arrear namely from two to four months after the transactions had taken place to which the accounts examined referred.

4. I am to add that the following papers connected with these charges are

your inspection

open for

(a.) Collector's Accounts of the Postmaster General for 1888, 1889 and

1890 (to March);

(b.) Bank Paying-in forms for the same periods;

(c.) Memoranda of Receipts from Colonial Treasurer during the same

period;

(d.) Account of Money Order transactions prepared by Z. M. BARRADAS

in 1889.

Any application for further documents made by you will, if practicable, be acceded to.

F. FREIRE, Esq.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

W. M. DEANE, Acting Colonial Secretary.

SIR,

704

10010

In reply to your letter No. 1041 of the 22nd May lastforwarding to me copy of certain charges made against me by the Honourable A. Lagrez Plastmaster General, and requiring me to submit in writing my answers to these chargés, and to your further letter of the 4th June handing me specimen particulars of amounts and dates as affecting the various charges, I have now the honour to hand you my explanation and defence, which I beg of you to submit for the favourable consi- deration of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, and I would ask you to convey to His Excellency at the same time, my hearty thanks for his goodness in extending the time allowed me for my reply and in permitting Mr. FRANCIS to inspect the books, papers, &c., &c. connected with the matter. Before dealing categorically with the specific charges made against me may I be permitted to refer generally to the unfortunate affair out of which these charges have arisen and to the Money Order Department of the Post Office, and its gencral management. What I have to say on these heads will serve as a general defence, and as an explanation of and introduction to my answers to the particular charges.

Mr. BARRADAS, Superintendent of the Money Order Department of the Post Office, fled the Colony in March last and it was then found that there were defici- encies in his accounts to the extent of some $46,000 or over.

On investigation it was found that he had some two or three years past been appropriating, to his own use, moneys received by him from the public for Money Orders, and had been able to conceal the deficiencies in bis accounts by making use of the vouchers for moneys paid into the Treasury on account of Postal Notes as vouchers for moneys paid in on account of Money Orders, and by other similar devices. The question then naturally arose how was it that during the two or three years that these defalcations were going on, the Audit Office Clerk making the monthly audit had not been able to detect these frauds or had not called attention to them. I was the Audit Office clerk whose duty it was during the past three years to examine and check Mr. BARRADAS' accounts and that I should be called on for an explanation is natural and proper, but I respectfully submit that there has been no justification for my suspension from office and

pay.

The Regulations are express that no officer shall be suspended until charges have been formally made against him, until he has had the opportunity of answer- ing those charges and until the Executive Council has pronounced upon those charges after considering the defence. There is of course an exception where an officer is in actual charge and receipt of money and stores and his removal, pending investigation is essential, but I very respectfully submit that there was nothing whatever in my position or duty to make that exception applicable to me. I had neither charges of money nor stores; I was not guilty of any defalcation myself or suspected of

and my

continued presence

in my office could have done no possible harm. The very most that was needed to obviate any possible incon- venience was that I should change duties with Mr. RIBEIRO. Why I have been treated as if I had been the thief, I do not understand.

any,

Now to answer the general question not forinulated in the charges but under- lying them all, how was it, I did not discover these frauds in the course of my duties as Audit clerk, I ask leave to give a general answer in the first instance and to reply to the particular charges seriatim afterwards—one general answer is that the method in which the accounts and books of the Money Order Office and Post Office were kept and have been kept for years past, was so defective as to lend itself to fraud and help to conceal it and to render it very difficult for any audit to discover it.