H.—2B

Sess. 11.—1879. NEW ZEALAND.

PUBLIC PROPERTY AND STORES (REGULATIONS PROVIDING FOR THE PURCHASE, RECEIPT, SAFE CUSTODY, ISSUE AND ACCOUNTING FOR).

Laid before both Houses of the General Assembly, pursuant to Section 85 of " The Public Bevenues Act, 1878."

As to the Purchase of Properly and Stores. 1. Purchases of property or stores are to be made, whenever that course is practicable, under contract, and, if under contract, then only under contract entered into upon public tender duly invited by advertisement. No contract for continuous supplies shall be for a longer period than one year unless there are special reasons to the contrary, but fresh tenders shall be called for by public advertisement, and a new contract entered into in time to replace that which is about to expire. Classification of Departmental Property and Stores. 2. Public stores are divisible into three classes—viz., (1) " Office or Departmental Property," (2) " Stores for Issue," (3) " Stores for Consumption." The first class, " Office or Departmental Property," will comprise all office and departmental furniture and fittings, instruments, tools, implements, utensils, and all appliances in use in, or used by, am/ local office or department. The second class, " Stores for Issue," will comprise stores of every description, held by any local office or department for sale, issue, or expenditure, such as railway, telegraph, or other material, arms and accoutrements, ammunition, lighthouse stores, &c. The third class, " Stores for Consumption," will embrace all stores held by any local office or department for its own consumption, such as stationery, fuel, oil, kerosene, tallow, cotton-waste, paints, tar, pitch, varnish ; all articles of food used in gaols, hospitals, lunatic asylums, barracks, steam vessels, and the like; hay, corn, fodder, drugs and chemicals, ammunition, &c. As to the "Departmental Property Ledr/er," and " Stores for Issue Ledger." 3. Every Under Secretary, or other officer empowered to authorize the payment of accounts, shall keep in his office a "Departmental Property Ledger," in which he shall open an account with every officer under the control of his department having charge of " departmental property ;" and in that ledger, after debiting the relative account of each officer with the " departmental property " in his charge at the date of the latest "Departmental Property Eeturn"' received from him, he shall charge the officer concerned with all further items of property from time to time placed in his charge. 4. If such additional property is issued from Store, then the entry in the " Departmental Property Ledger," shall be made from the " Stores for Issue Ledger " (hereinafter referred to), and, if obtained by purchase, whether at the seat of Government or elsewhere, then from the certified abstract or account of the person or persons by whom the articles were supplied; and the folio or folios of the Departmental Property Ledger in which the entry is or entries are made shall be noted in the one case in the Stores for Issue Ledger, and in the other on the abstract or account of the articles supplied. 5. The Under Secretary, or other officer authorized to sanction the payment or credit of such abstract or account, shall, before authorizing such payment or credit, certify that the articles set forth in the account have been duly entered in the Departmental Property Ledger; but he shall in no case sign such certificate until such entries have been made, or without seeing that the page of the Departmental Property Ledger in which such entries have been made is noted on the abstract. 6. Every Under Secretary, or other officer empowered to authorize the payment of accounts, shall keep in his office a " Stores for Issue Ledger," in which he shall open an account with every officer under the control of his department holding " stores for issue," and in that ledger, after debiting the relative account of each officer with all " stores for issue " held by such officer at the date of the latest " Stores for Issue Return," he shall charge the officer in question with all further " stores for issue " placed in his charge. 7. If such further " stores for issue " are issued from store, then the account of the officer to whom the issue is made shall be debited, and the account of the issuing officer credited with the stores issued.