Nov. 6.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 3493

(d) Any payment has not been duly authorized, or has not been duly vouched or certified;
(e) There has been any deficiency or loss of public moneys or stores, or any damage to stores, or expenditure for the repair or replacement of stores, caused through the fraud, mistake, default, negligence, or error of any person;
(f) Any account, voucher, statement, document, or explanation is in any essential particular defective or imperfect;
(g) Any material error has been committed; or that
(h) Any of the provisions of the Act or any other Act or the regulations have not been complied with—

the Controller and Auditor-General shall surcharge with the amount of any deficiency or loss, or the value of such stores, or the cost of repairs to stores, or expenditure not duly authorized, vouched, or certified, the person who appears to him to be in default, or responsible, notifying that person in writing of the surcharge and of the time within which the surcharge must be satisfied.

Any surcharge unsatisfied within the time so allowed shall be reported by the Controller and Auditor-General to the Minister, to be by him enforced against the person surcharged.

If any person having possession or control of any public moneys or stores applies, or causes or permits the same or any part thereof to be so applied, to other than public services, or is a defaulter in respect of any such moneys or stores, the Controller and Auditor-General shall forthwith take all such steps as he thinks fit to prosecute the offender according to law, but nothing herein shall prevent the prosecution of such person by any person other than the Controller and Auditor-General.

170. The Minister, on receiving the Controller and Auditor-General’s report of an unsatisfied surcharge, shall send notice of it in writing to the person surcharged, and take such steps to recover the amount as the case may require. No amount payable to or claimed by that person shall be paid until the surcharge has been satisfied and the amount of the surcharge shall be recoverable from that person as a debt due to the Administration:

Provided that, unless the Minister otherwise directs payment of not more than one-fourth of the salary of any officer surcharged shall be withheld under this section.

The Controller and Auditor-General may at any time revoke any surcharge made by him in error under the last preceding regulation.

171. In all cases of which notice of any surcharge has been sent by the Minister to any accounting officer or other person in the Samoan Public Service or subject to the provisions of the Act and the regulations, who is dissatisfied with that surcharge, such accounting officer or person may within two months after the sending of the notice appeal to the Minister, who, after making such investigation as he deems equitable, may determine the matter by an order either confirming the surcharge or directing the relief of the appellant therefrom either wholly or in part.

172. The Controller and Auditor-General may, with the consent of the Minister, dispense with the detailed audit of any accounts, but not with any appropriation audit of such accounts. The consent of the Minister shall be given only in these cases in which he considers that there are circumstances which render a detailed audit under the Act and the regulations unnecessary:

Provided that a list of such cases shall be comprised and published in the Controller and Auditor-General’s report in each year.

173. No sum shall be allowed by the Controller and Auditor-General in any account as received or paid except upon the production of a voucher for the actual receipt or payment of the same:

Provided that the Minister, on satisfactory evidence being produced that the requisite papers have been lost or destroyed or that it is not possible to obtain or replace them, may order that any such sum be allowed, and may make such order in the premises as he thinks fit, and such order shall be binding on all parties concerned and be acted on accordingly.

174. For the purposes of the last preceding section the Controller and Auditor-General may accept as a sufficient voucher for the payment of any sum as wages a wage-sheet setting forth the names of the several payees and the wages paid to them respectively, if the wages-sheet is signed by the paying officer and by some other officer or employee who shall both certify on the wages-sheet that they were present when the wages were paid.

For the purposes of this section “wages” means any moneys paid in return for services rendered where the amount payable is determined by a fixed hourly, daily, or weekly rate.

175. When a voucher produced for the payment of a sum of money is defective from the want of any certificate or other document which ought to have accompanied it, or in any other particular, the Controller and Auditor-General, on proof to his satisfaction that the said defect was not due to wilful neglect of the accounting officer and that the sum named in the voucher has been actually and properly paid, may pass the voucher as a sufficient discharge.

CONCLUSION.

176. The foregoing regulations have been adapted from the New Zealand Public Revenues Act, 1926, and the regulations made thereunder, with the intention that the provisions of such Act and regulations shall, where applicable, and unless intention to the contrary is expressed, apply in the case of the accounts of the Administration of Western Samoa; where, therefore, the meaning of any of the foregoing regulations is not clear or explicit, the matter shall be determined, mutatis mutandis, by reference to the said Public Revenues Act, 1926, and regulations and any decision so arrived at shall be conclusive for the purpose of these regulations.

A. W. MULLIGAN,
Acting Clerk of the Executive Council.

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