PUBLIC ACCOUNTS CRITICISED

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21865, 19 August 1936, Page 12

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS CRITICISED

Auditor-General^ Comment TRANSFERS WITHIN A SINGLE ACCOUNT [from Qur Parliamentary Reporter. I WELLINGTON, August 18. Criticism of the way in which parts of the public accounts are compiled foxpresentation to Parliament is voiced in the report of the Controller and Auditor-General, Mr G. F. C, Campbell, which was tabled with the public accounts for the year ended March 31, 1936, in the House of Representatives to-day. “I regret that it ig necessary for me once again to call the attention of Parliament to the unsatisfactory methods adopted in the compilation of some portions of the public accounts for presentation to Parliament,” the Auditor-General states. ‘Tn the opinion of the Audit Department, the public accounts as published do not in some respects represent the true position of the public funds of the Dominion, and although X am pleased to acknowledge that the Treasury has recently made some improvements, the main objections raised in previous years remain unsettled, Referring to what he describes as an incorrect method of showing transactions between accounts within the public account, Mr Campbell says: “The Treasury is empowered under the Public Revenues Act to make temporary transfers between various subaccounts of the public account when required. No objection is raised to this practice, which is quite sound, When the year’s accounts are published, however, these transactions are not c’hown as payments in the cash account of the lending sub-account, although they are shown correctly as cash received in the borrowing subaccount. The result is that the amount is reflected in the balances of both sub-accounts, and as the subaccounts are both within the public account, the total balance of the latter account is thus shown as having been increased by the amount of the transfer every time a transfer is made, whereas no increase in the public account has actually taken place. The inflation thus shown has in seme years amounted to many millions. Treatment of Exchange Mr Campbell also criticises the method of treating exchange in public accounts along the lines of previous reports. He contends that instead of the Government appropriating a c lngle sum to cover the whole of its exchange costs each department should be required to take a separate item on its estimates to cover exchange charges. The Auditor-General also repeats his criticism of the practice of making some changes in the form of the accounts without the authority of Parliament, and of the failure to credit interest earned only to the account which provides the money for investment.