NOT BUSINESSLIKE

Taranaki Daily News, 20 August 1935, Page 10

NOT BUSINESSLIKE

THREE BALANCE-SHEETS MISSING. protest from a solicitor. A protest against what he termed certain unbusinesslike methods adopted .by the Transport Department in handling applications in connection with goods service licenses was made by Mr. J. Houston at the sitting of the No. 5 District Transport Licensing Authority at Hawera yesterday. It was required by the regulations that applicants should send certain information, including balance-sheets, to Wellington, where the files used by the authority were made up, said Mr. Houston, and yet they had had the spectacle that day of three balance-sheets, which applicants stated had been sent to Wellington, not being on the authority’s file. Apparently the data had been mislaid by the department, which was most unsatisfactory from the point of view of the authority (assisting to cause undue delay in the disposal of applications) of the applicants and of the solicitors, who had to make more appearances than were necessary. In one case before the authority an applicant stated that an acknowledgment from the department at Wellington of the receipt of data had been followed by a request for the same information. He had referred the department to its own acknowledgment before he was given an assurance that the data had been received. Another applicant, whose balancesheet was not on the authority’s file, assured the chairman that it had been sent by a firm of accountants. At the request of the authority he confirmed his assertion and returned with a copy of the balance-sheet. In the third case in which the balancesheet was missing from the file the applicant stated that the department had acknowledged the receipt of his papers. The chairman, Mr. P. Thomson, pointed out that there had recently been a change of commissioners and a change of offices at Wellington. He stated that the authority would take the, matter up with the Commissioner of Transport with a view to preventing a recurrence of such errors.