REMEDIAL STEPS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 70, 15 December 1933, Page 12

REMEDIAL STEPS

Development Schemes AUDIT DIFFICULTIES Evidence Before Committee Steps which were taken by the Government to improve the administration of Native land development schemes were outlined by the Treasury in a statement presented before the Public Accounts Committee during its consideration of the Controller and AuditorGeneral’s report. During the 1929 session, the statement begins, Parliametn sanctioned a scheme for the development of unoccupied Native lands now known as the Native Land Development Scheme. Expenditure upon this, for the year ended March 31, had been as follows: — £ 1930- 79,300 1931- 218,500 1932- 261,100 Total 558,900 The difficulties experienced by the Audit Department are stated by the Treasury to have arisen for the most part because of: (1) The rapid acceleration of the schemes to meet the increasing demands of Natives to have their areas brought under development. (2) Employment of district officers, who, though experienced in the principal function for which they were appointed, in many cases had proved inexperienced In field accounting and administrative duties. (3) Problems inherent to the native question. (4) The wide powers vested in the Native Minister under the Native Land Act, 1931, under which the schemes had been pushed forward without due regard to the institution of adequate store and accounting control. (5) Irregularities by certain employees, some of whom had been dismissed, while others were under audit investigation. The steps taken by the Government to meet the position had been as follow :— (1) Amending legislation abolishing the native land settlement account and instituting a board of control. (2) Pending legislation to curtail the powers of the Native Minister. (3) Appointment of new permanent head with a reorganisation of staff and administrative machinery now in progress. Giving evidence before the committee, Colonel Campbell said that soon

after the inauguration of the scheme for the development of native lands under the Act of 1931 the Audit Office had difficulty in obtaining necessary information with regard to th® authorisation of expenditure to enable it to pass the accounts of the department. His officers continually reported that when Information was sought from the department the department, though anxious to supply it, yet had not the information or if it had the information it was not in a position to supply it. The Audit Office had found it quite impossible to exercise the check over the expenditure which Parliament naturally expected. He had spoken several times to the Prime Minister, who had been shocked to find that proper accounts were not being kept and that extravagant methods of purchase had been in vogue but did not look on the matter as being so important as it eventually proved. As a result of these conversations he had written a memorandum to Mr. Forbes on October 4 last advising that the Minister’s powers should be placed in the hands of the board. Inspectors at Work. In the meantime audit inspectors were at work in the Waipu district, and one inspector had sent . down a nrpgress report that he had discovered very considerable irregularities. Colonel Campbell described the method adopted of falsifying pay-sheets. Public moneys h?d been devoted to the purpose of reducing the natives’ overdraft not by ordinary means by by these falsifications. He said, he had purposely held back his report to Parliament to obtain something definite. On November 30, 1933, the Native Minister wrote that he had received information of serious irregularities in the accounts and stores for Native land settlement and unemployment. In this letter the Minister requested that a. competent departmental committee of inquiry should be se up, that all requirements imposed by Audit, Treasury, or the Stores Control Board should be fully complied with by the officers of the department, and that his own powers under the Native Land Act, 1931, should be fully assumed by the Native Land Development Board. Colonel Campbell said that the Native Minister had given him great assistance. Larger Staff Needed. The Auditor-General said he was firmly of opinion that it would have been more economical for the Native Department to have had a larger staff. Lands had been purchased by the department without making due inquiry either of the Land Office Valuer or the Valuer-General. He mentioned one case where the Native Department purchased a piece of land in' face of the Land Board’s advice and at a price considerably in excess of the valuation put on it. “My representations have been,” continued the Auditor-General, “that there was an unnecessary amount of authority and power put in the hands of the Minister, and the Minister was in the habit of exercising those powers without consulting the department. The consequence was that when we sent down to the department for information as to the authority for certain things e could get .nothing. The only answer was that ‘the Minister is approving and that is an end to it.’ Minister’s Statements. The Minister Said that in spite of the strictures of the Audit Department they had tried to permeate the service with the idea of carrying out the work as cheaply as possible and securing the largest possible output for the money spent. The money allotted had never been enough. Whatever else might come out of the investigation, he . would like the Government to bear in mind that the Maori settlers who had been put on Native lands had been working' under a severe strain and had only been able to withstand it by the inspirtion of the men who were leading them. ■ •Sir Apirana Ngata informed the committee that probably the too rapid extension of the system in some districts had caused a lag in"the organisation; the organisation did not keep up with the immense amount of detail that had to be handled. When the irregularities were fined down they were of the class that Colonel Campbell had told the committee about—in the running of motor vehicles, in the checking up of stores, the distribution of posts and fencing material, the keeping tab over the hundreds of tons of manure that were being distributed to the schemes, and so on. Most of the troubles that had arisen in the Rotorua district in regard to the running of vehicles and so on were due to the constitution of the Arawa people, and to the fact that they had concentrated on the solution of the pumice lands. A third factor was that it was a tourist centre, and the centre of the social life of a large district. “I want to say," he continued, “that all my evidence is an admission that the Controller and Auditor-General was right in his complaint that there has been too much Minister and not enough department in the administration. I admit that at once. At the same time I want to make the point that in a new development like this, when one is thrown into the firmament of a new policy in a time of depression there did not seem anything much else to do but to get on with the job in the best way possible, and I plead guilty to not having interested myself as head of the administration in the establishment of those checks upon the expenditure which would have satisfied the Treasury and the Audit, and which have led to the breakdown of confidences in the two finance departments in the character of the administration of the Native Department. ' r A letter was submitted written by Mr. Verschaffelt to the Prime Minister, in which the Public Service Commissioner reported an interview he had had with the Native Minister to suggest a change in the administration of the department. The Minister had informed him that in event of the views Mr. Verschaffelt expressed being carried out he might have to consider his position as a member of the Government. In this letter Mr. Verschaffelt recommended the retirement of Judge Jones from the under-secretary-ship of the Native Department and the appointment of a new officer.