CO129-607-3 Revenue Reward Fund 11-11-1948 - 12-12-1948 — Page 43

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or the omission by Departments to receipt the issue vouchers at all. This unsatisfactory state of affairs is at present receiving the attention of Government.

145. Furniture. In the course of audit inspections of the inventories of Furniture kept by Departments, it appeared that the majority of Government departments had obtained furniture from various sources, notably from the Custodian of Property, and that a proportion of this may not have been recorded in the records of Government furniture kept by the Controller of Stores. The matter is being kept in view,

146. Annual Boards of Survey. In accordance with Colonial Regulation No.344, Boards of Survey were appointed to check the more important stocks of Government stores in the Colony at the 31st March, 1947. Surveys were not held, however, until after the close of the financial year.

147. In the course of the eleven months ended the 31st March, 1947, and in the subsequent period, a considerable amount of time and labour have been spent by officers of this Department in helping to improve the unsatisfactory accounting procedure for stores, particularly so in connection with the accounts and stores of the Stores Department. Heads of Departments must be made to realize, however, that they are personally responsible for seeking that proper store accounting records are kept for any stores or articles which are public property in their charge,

148.

LOSSES OF GOVERNMENT MONEY AND STORES.

Particulars of losses of Government money or stores due to theft, fraud or serious irregularity which have come to the notice of this Department since the 1st May, 1946, are given in Annexure V to this report. It appears that, in some cases in which the prior approval of His Majesty's Treasury was required for writing off the losses of cash and stores and abandonment of claims (Paragraph 41 and 61), this authority was not obtained.

DEPARTURE FROM APPROVED PROGRAMME OF WORK.

149. The annual programme of work relating to the accounts of the period under review, as approved by the Director General of Colonial Audit, has been carried out with certain exceptions detailed in Annexure VI to this report, mostly in connection with subsidiary records. Every effort is being made to bring up to date these arrears which are due principally to the difficulty in obtaining and the training of adequate examining staff and the unavoidable delays experienced in the filling of vacancies in supervisory staff.

150.

PRESENT POSITION OF ANY QUESTION REPORTED AS OUTSTANDING IN THE LAST ANNUAL REPORT AND ANY OUTSTANDING QUESTIONS WHICH AFFECT OR ARE LIKELY TO AFFECT THE ACCURACY OF THE ANNUAL ABSTRACT ACCOUNT OR OF THE STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES.

The following paragraphs deal with questions reported as out- standing in the Report of the Director General of Colonial Audit on the Hong Kong (London) Accounts Office for the financial period 1945/46. Abstract Account: paragraph 3. Accrued salary statements of pay due to Hong Kong Government Civil Servants have been examined in the course of the examination of payments made to officers and, as far as information has been available, the advances made by the London Accounts