S.L. 601.1 Art. 62Withholding of payments.

(1) (a) Before authorizing payment, the Accountant

General may verify that the safeguards in regulation 61 have been complied with, and if it appears to him that any payment voucher is drawn up for a service not included in the estimates or that it is in excess of the authorized provision for the service, or that it is in any way inaccurate or incorrect, he shall withhold payment and return the voucher to the department concerned.

(b) The selection of payments for verification purposes shall be at the discretion of the Accountant General who shall also reserve the right to conduct verifications as and when required, without prior notice to accounting officers.

(2) During the verification process, authorized public officers duly delegated by the Accountant General, may conduct on the spot verifications of payments being processed and other payments already processed and paid. These authorized officers shall have a right of access at all times to the department’s accounting records, accounts and vouchers and shall be entitled to request from the accounting officers such information as they think necessary for the performance of their duties. The information may also be transmitted in either hard or soft copy as deemed suitable by the delegated officer.

(3) It shall be the duty of every officer assigned to conduct verifications, to immediately disclose to the Accountant General, any form of conflict of interest he may have in any verification, whether such conflict is direct or indirect, and refrain completely from involving himself in that particular case.

(4) If it appears at any stage during the conduct of the verification that the payment is unauthorized, the accounting officer concerned shall be held responsible to recoup funds. In such an event, the Accountant General shall report to Government of this finding.