SERIES OF CHARGES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 48, 25 January 1934, Page 7

SERIES OF CHARGES.

AGAINST CERTIFYING OFFICER. jNATIVE EMPLOYMENT SCHEME. Per Press Association.. GISBORNE, Jan. 25. Charles Goldsmith appeared before Mr E. L. Walton, S.M., in the Police Court this morning to .answer a number of charges in connection with his duties as a certifying officer under the Unemployment Act. Accused, who is manager of the Waiapu Farmers’ Co-op. Coy., Tikitiki, and was appointed certifying officer for the Native Department’s unemployment relief schemes early in 1932, appeared on 16 charges—eight of obtaining sums of money from the Government with intent to defraud by means of false pretences and teight of making false entries in material particulars in certificates of completion of work under the native unemployment scheme. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr F. W. Nolan, had charge of the prosecution when the hearing commenced at noon, and Mr A. A. Whitehead appeared for accused, while Mr L. T. Burnard watched the proceedings on behalf of the Waiapu Farmers’ Co-op. Coy. The Crown Prosecutor, after describing accused’s duties as certifying officer under the Unemployment Act, asserted that the practice followed by accused was to inflate the cost of a job by the amount of loan money repayable to the Government by the ,owner of the property on which work was to be done. For example, in a job to cost £4O £lO might be the loan money. Accused would inflate the contract and the balance to be refunded to the Government, as repayment of the loan, was therefore, provided by the -Government itself. In some cases, it would be shown, native labourers had not been paid cash but the money went to the Waiapu Farmers’ Company to reduce the labourers’ indebtedness.