50,000 War Gratuity Accounts Ready

Northern Advocate, 1 April 1946, Page 2

50,000 War Gratuity Accounts Ready

: ip. a.) well: I The Minister of Defence <Mip F. ! Jones) has announced that appliesI lions for war service gratuities now {total 165,729. . Of this total. 50.321 claims havebeen completed and post office accounts opened. Over 70.000 qualified servicemen have not yet applied. “Service men and women whose applications have been fully checked and verified, will receive special war service gratuities passbooks that will entitle them to leave their money on {deposit at the post office savings bank !or withdraw it. at their discretion/’ j said the Minister. "As each application is completed, the Director-General of the Post and Telegraph Department posts to each serviceman a special gratuity passbook. with the amount due clearly set out. MUST HAVE PASSBOOK “Withdrawal from the post office savings account cannot be made except after receipt of the passbook. ' Slightly more than 100.0.00 applications, said Mr. Jones, were still in the process of checking by the three Services, and it was anticipated that these would be verified at the rate of 10,000 a week. It was regretted that all accounts could not be completed by the date mentioned previously. April 1, but among the difficulties of such a huge task had been the loss of manpower due to the lifting of manpower controls. This had been partly relieved by the transfer of Public Service volun-

tNGTON, This Day • teers. who worked overtime to fneili- | fate completion of the work. INTEREST RATES The Minister added that interest at j the rate of 2 1 per cent a year would j accrue to all accounts as from Monday next and irrespective of the date | of lodgment. A special bonus of 5 per cent would be payable on April 1 of next year on the balance in the account on the i previous day. According to the records, there were still some 70.000 qualified servicemen who had not yet applied for the gratuity, and those who had applied late might have to wait some time be- i fore their money and passbooks could j he made available. Staffs were working through Satur-j days and Sundays to complete the ac- \ counts at the earliest possible m>j ment. but it would not help in any way for claimants t.o write to Base Records or the respective departments and ask for their accounts to receive special attention. Receipts of a passbook would be notification that the application had been verified and the amount of the j gratuity determined. i