(a) There shall be in the office of the Commissioner of Insurance the office of the Comptroller General of the State of Georgia. The Commissioner of Insurance shall be the Comptroller General.

(b) It shall be the duty of the Comptroller General:

(1) To keep an account showing the several appropriations authorized by law, the time when the same are drawn from the treasury, in whose favor they are drawn, and to what fund they are charged;

(2) To examine, check, and countersign all warrants upon the treasury drawn by the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to charge the amount thereof to the funds on which they may be respectively drawn prior to their being presented to the Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services for payment;

(3) To audit all accounts against the state and to allow or reject the same before they are submitted to the Governor;

(4) To see that no draft or warrant shall be countersigned by him to be paid out of any appropriated fund after the fund has been exhausted; and in such case, or in any case of illegal payments from the treasury upon warrants countersigned by the Comptroller General, he and the director of the Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services with all their securities shall be jointly and severally liable upon their several bonds for the repayment of such amounts with all expenses of prosecution to the state;

(5) To receive and keep safely and collect all evidences of debt due to the state from any source other than taxes and to pay over the same to the director of the Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services as soon as collected;

(6) To keep a book in which to enter all bonds taken and to file the originals in his office;

(7) To have made suitable indexes to the record books in his office; and

(8) To certify under his official seal at all times when necessary for public use and, on application and payment of his legal fees therefor, for private use, copies of any papers kept in his office.