Prompt and careful attention must be given by all officers, and others in the employment of the Provincial Government, to the instructions they may receive from the above named Heads of Departments; and any information which such officers may be called upon to give must be rendered as fully and accurately as possible, and without delay.

a. Official Letters are to be addressed to the various Government Officers by their official title, and each letter to be exclusively confined to one subject. A register shall be kept in each Department of all communications received and forwarded, and each communication is to be numbered so as to facilitate reference.

All Government Offices shall be open, until further notice, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except on Saturdays, and then from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; and no Government Officer other than the Head of the Office shall absent himself during those hours unless upon leave granted to him by the proper Officer.

An appearance sheet shall be kept in every office, in which the names of all persons employed therein, together with the hour at which they enter the office and the hour at which they leave the same shall be returned by such Officer as the Head of the Office shall appoint. The appearance sheets of the previous week shall be left at the Provincial Secretary’s Office not later than 10.30 every Monday morning. This regulation shall not be understood to apply strictly to Heads of Offices.

The Provincial Treasury will be open for payments-on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from ten a.m. to three p.m., and on Saturday from ten a.m. to twelve.

Every person authorised by His Honor the Superintendent to receive money on account of the revenues of the Province shall keep regularly posted up a cash book containing particulars of all moneys received by him, and shall on the last day of each month, or whenever they amount to the sum of £10, pay the same to the Provincial Account at the Bank of New Zealand; or if there be no branch or agency of that bank at the place where the person so authorised resides, then at some other bank (if there be one) to the credit of the Provincial Treasurer; and if there be no bank, then the amount is to be remitted to the Provincial Treasurer by Post Office order, or in such other way as may be directed; and he shall at the same time forward to the Provincial Treasurer a detailed account thereof in duplicate, copied from the cash book in form A; one copy to be forwarded to the Provincial Auditor by the Provincial Treasurer.

The printed Estimates of Expenditure passed by the Provincial Council in each year, are in all cases to form the basis of the system of accounts, and care is to be taken that heads of expenditure are the same in the Accounts as in the Estimates.

Heads of Offices will forward to Heads of Departments for examination all vouchers for the expenditure of money, and will also forward weekly a schedule setting forth the names of all persons whose accounts they have certified during the week as correct, which have been forwarded by them to the Head of Department, together with all necessary particulars connected with such accounts.

It shall be the duty of every Head of an Office to send in the salary account for his office to the Head of the Department on the last day of every month.

Accounts transmitted for payment in an incomplete state, or altered in any essential particular by erasure or interlineation or otherwise, will be returned to the office from which they were received in order that they may be completed or made out anew, as the case may require.

Sub-Treasurers of the Provincial Government will furnish to the Provincial Treasurer at the end of every month a copy of their cash-book, together with a certified copy of the Bank pass-book.

Duplicate accounts are in no case to be certified unless the word “Duplicate” be written in red ink across the face thereof, nor until it has been satisfactorily ascertained that the original accounts previously certified have not been paid, and that they cannot be obtained.

Each Head of an Office is enjoined to afford every possible facility to persons having claims against his office, so as to enable them to prepare their accounts in such a manner as to secure their prompt payment.

Before the close of the periods for which provision has been made in the Appropriation Ordinance, Heads of Offices will see that all accounts for expenditure incurred be obtained and liquidated, so far as is in their power.

Except in cases of incompleted contracts, all sums payable under an Appropriation Act not called for during the currency of the financial year, for which such appropriation shall have been granted, shall be considered in abeyance, and payment will be withheld by the Treasurer, and the Certificate of the Auditor (if previously given) will be cancelled until a new appropriation has been made by the Superintendent and the Provincial Council.

The Provincial Auditor is empowered to call for all books, papers and vouchers.