AUDITING OF COUNTY COUNCIL ACCOUNTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8472, 24 January 1891, Page 3

AUDITING OF COUNTY COUNCIL ACCOUNTS.

IMPORTANT LEGAL POINT. [by telegraph. —OTOf CORRESPONDENT, Hamilton, Friday. ■. A matter of importance to County Councils generally was touched upon at the meeting of the Piako County Council on Thursday, when an exhaustive legal opinion by Mr. Wm. M. Hay was read. The Piako County Council has every year declined to pay the- demand made by the Auditor-General for auditing the Council's accounts, and the AuditorGeneral has now stopped the amount-claimed from the subsidy coining to the County. The gist of Mr. Hay's opinion as follows: That the cost of auditing the accounts of the County Councils was and is a charge on the consolidated fund. Previously to 1888 the accounts of Road Boards and County Councils were audited by the AuditorGeneral, and charged to consolidated fund under section 100 of the Road Boards Act, 1882, and section 126 Counties Act, 1876. The Public Revenues Act passed in. 1886 abolished this privilege, and provided: that in all cases in which the accounts of any local body are audited by the audit office ■the cost and expenses of such audit shall be paid by the local bodies." This repeals the above quoted sections of the Road Board and Counties Act, and Road Boards must now bear the cost of audit. The Counties Act, 1886, which came into force one day latei; than the Public Revenues Act, 18S6, re-enacts word-for-word, section 126 of the Counties) Act, 1876, and so restores the old order o! tilings so far as counties are concerned, There is a decided conflict between the Counties Act, 1886, and the Public Revenues Act, 1886, and the former being the later enactment must prevail. Special attention must be given to the words as if originally enacted, employed in the first part of section 3, Revenues Act, 1890, " If the words under the provisions of any Act in that behalf, or by order or by appointment by the Governor, or by the Governor-in-Council, or otherwise howsoever," had been originally enacted in the Public Revenues Act, 1386, they would have been subject to the implied repeal effected by section 175 of the Counties Act, 1886. As to the second part of section 3, I am of opinion that it does-nob apply, as your audits do not purport to be, and are not, made under the Public Revenues Act, but under the Counties Act, 1876.