Vol. 436 No. 7
31 Mr. Cox asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry if he will make a statement on the criticism in respect of export refunds in the (EU) Annual Court of Auditors Report for the 1992 financial year that, despite the difficulty in verifying the validity of changes, refunds were being paid without query.
Export refunds are not paid by my Department without query. The manual alteration of documents referred to in the 1992 Report of the Court of Auditors concerns one large consignment of meat. The changes in question had been made by the trader involved and authenticated by Customs officials before transfer to my Department for processing and payment. It is not possible for alterations to be made by traders to forms which have not been authorised by Customs. The forms involved in this case were fully checked and the Customs endorsements noted before the file was processed.
