FRAUDS DETECTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 120, 22 May 1937, Page 12

FRAUDS DETECTED.

SUSTENANCE PAY.

DEPARTMENTAL INQUIRIES.

HEAVIER PENALTIES NEEDED.

Investigations instituted by the employment branch of the Labour Department in Auckland have revealed a large number of instances of men wrongfully drawing on the Employment Promotion Fund. Considerable difficulty is being experienced in detecting the frauds, but the Department has now doubled the size of its investigating staff in a determined effort to lessen the abuses.

The great amount of work entailed in the comprehensive check-up that is being made may be gauged from the fact that in the Auckland area, excluding New Lynn, Ellerslie, Onehunga, North Shore and St. Helier's, there are approximately 4600 people receiving sustenance. The total registrations, however, are about 6000, the balance of 1400 men being on some form or relief work. Sustenance is paid on the basis of £1 a week for a man, 15/ for a wife, 4/ for each child under the age of 16 years, and the maximum amount to which any man is entitled ia £3 3/. Sum of £1000 Not Claimed. It will be recalled that on March 22 last a large number of frauds were detected when the Department conducted a check at the payout of nonunion waterside workers, and as a result of that there is a sum of about £1000 still awaiting claimants. Actually 800 men have claims on this sum. Since the beginning of the year 422 other cases have been investigated in which the Department is confident the exietence of fraud has been established, and, in respect to the men Involved, it is maintained that about £2250 has been wrongfully taken from the Employment Promotion Fund. Additional cases, numbering 650, are now receiving attention, and already the conclusion has been reached that a further 57 men have been in receipt of sustenance under two or three names.

In some instances the frauds amount to a few. shillings only, but in others the sums involved range up to £100. The: wrongful possession of one or more levy books is a common method of gaining extra sustenance. Furthermore, the implication of some Maoris in what appear to be frauds suggests that there is at present a loophole by which the funds may have been drawn upon wrongly in further ease*.

The state of affairs which exists in Auckland is believed to be a fair I criterion of what is happening throughout the Dominion, and the activities of the Department to clear up the position will have the approval not only of contributors to the Employment Promotion Fund, but men who are drawing sustenance in a legitimate manner. Greater Safeguards Needed. It seeme, however, that greater legislative safeguards and penalties for sustenance frauds are necessary if the scheme is to be placed on a proper basis. The Employment Promotion Act does not provide for imprisonment for breaches under it, the maximum penalty being a line of £100. The opinion is held in legal circles that as an alternative to proceeding under this Act, the Department is clearly entitled to bring cases of false pretences or other charges relating to the wrongful obtaining of money under the Justices of the Peace Act or the Crimes Act It is explained, on the other hand, that to date it hae been to proceed under the X hi I"' r d /* wouM *• P»*erable to have the Employment Promotion Act UTiSSI P r ? vid . e / or imprisonment in cases where false information ie given