Wholesale Frauds

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 107, 22 May 1937, Page 5

Wholesale Frauds

— Preoo Association.)

RELIEF WORKERS GUILTY Impersonations and False Declarations AUCKLAND REVELATI0NS

(By Teloersph-

AUCKLAND, Last Night. Investigationa now being made by the employment branch of the Labour Departcnent in Auckland reveal that frauds on the employment promotion fund8 have been carried out on an amazingly widespread scale by means of false declarations and impersonations. Many hundreds of men have been drawing sustenance payments to which they were not entitled, and it would appear that knowledge of fraudulent methods by which the funds could be plundered must have been comcnon among a relatively large section of the unemployed. The department is spreading a wide and comprehensive net, recently doubling the size of its investigating staff, but whatever are its conclusions on the subject, the fact seems manifest that greater legislative safeguards and. penalties for sustenance frauds are an imperative nec6ssity. On March 22 last the department exercised a cheek at the pay-out of retrospective wages to non-union waterside workers. The men were then required to produce their unemployment levy books as evidence of identity, and a large number of frands were then detected, bnt it was clear that word was soon circulated regaTding the check, and to-day there is a sum of about £1000 still awaiting claimants. No less than 800 men have claims on this sum, and while it would be wrong to assume that all are remaining in the background because of a sense of guilt, the view is inescapable tha,t the reluctance of a big pxoportion to claim possession ariSes from a sense of belated caution. Aparfe altogether from this highly snspicious aspect, cases involving 422 tnen have been investigated since the beginning of the year in which the department is confident that its inquiries have clearly established the existence of frauds. In respect of these men it claims that the huge sum of £2249 has wrongfully heen taken from the sustenance funds. Furthermore, it is now checking 650 additional cases, and so far its investigations have convineed it that 57 men have been drawing sustenance under two or three hames each. This investigation has some way yet to go before completion.