PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 153, 25 March 1944, Page 8

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Procedure Of Committee

An. improvement in the procedure prescribed for the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives was urged by Mr. Polson, when the committee was appointed in the House yesterday. He said that this committee differed from other committees in that it reported to the Government and not the House. He had seen a dozen different sets of estimates going through the committee in an hour or two almost at a rate of a million a minute, simply because members of the committee were not able to scrutinize them.

The present procedure was inadequate and did not give the committee the opportunity to fulfil its functions, said Mr. Polson. The accounts for the past year should be available when the committee was considering .the estimated expenditure for the coming year so that it. could see how the money had spent in the previous year. Members of the committee should also have the right to discuss certain aspects of the accounts iu the House as a result of their investigations, though he did not suggest an unrestrained right. The Prime Minister. Mr. Fraser, said that any suggestion for an alteration or an improvement in the Parliamentary machinery should be seriously considered with a view to the adoption of the most efficient system possible. He had quite an open mind for he had not the facts, but if there were any impediments in the way of the committee operating efficiently then they should be removed. Parliament must be adjusted to meet the requirements of the times. He suggested that tlie matter be discussed by the committee with the Acting-Minister of Finance. Mr. Sullivan, and any reoinniendations it made would receive every consideration.

Mr. McCombs (Government. Lyttelton) said he could not understand what the member for Stratford meant when he talked about the committee not having accounts for the past. year. There was always a table of three columns, one containing the estimates for the past year one the actual amount expended, and the other the estimates for the coming year. He was not aware of any restraint bein’- placed on any member of tlm committee against, raising any matter in the House, and in fact it was frequently done.