GOVERNMENT LOSSES

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28629, 4 July 1958, Page 7

GOVERNMENT LOSSES

£950,772 Written Off By Departments The Government last year lost £950,772 through sums irrecoverable by the Crown or stores required to be written off departmental accounts. The biggest single loss shown in the Estimates is £339,178 worth of stores lost by fire from the Civil Aviation Administration. The taxes division of the Inland Revenue Department was a heavy loser on the cash side. Listed as irrecoverable are £113,567 worth of land and income tax, £7703 of social security charge on salaries and wages and £20,289 of social security charge on other income. The Post and Telegraph Department had the greatest amount of bad debts—£63s4, followed by the State Advances Corporation where bad debts worth £3316 were written off in the housing account.

Thefts did not account for a great deal of the stores. The Ministry of Works was the heaviest loser. £2714 worth of stores being stolen from it. Thefts from the Post and Telegraph Department were £2499 in stores, and from the Army £1335 worth of stores were stolen. The only major theft of money was from the Printing and Stationery Office—£46s.

Listed in the Government’s unauthorised expenditure is an amount of £1377, an ex gratia payment from the Post Office account to the Akaroa sub-branch of the ChristchurcM Returned Services’ Association for theft of the association’s funds by a former Post Office employee.