CO129-575-5 Passport Office- authorisation for writing off deficiencies 31-3-1939 - 19-3-1940 — Page 18

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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).