EXCHANGE COSTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22860, 15 October 1937, Page 13

EXCHANGE COSTS

METHOD OF TREATMENT THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AUDITOR-GENERAL'S CRITICISM [BT TELEGRAPH —SPECIAL REPORTER] WELLINGTON, Thursday "Attention has been drawn from time to time to the method <Jf treating exchange in the public accounts, and I have to state that the position is still unsatisfactory," states the Controller and Auditor-General, Mr. J. H. Fowler, in his report to Parliament for the 1936-37 financial year, which was presented in the House of Representatives to-day by the Speaker. "A slight improvement was made during the year,- exchange costs having been recovered from the Post Office and railways on overseas expenditure made from Public Works Fund votes for these two departments," states Mr. Fowler. "This improvement has little effect on the general position: as the greater portion of the exchange cost results from the payment of interest in London and is paid from the Consolidated Fund. No charge is made against the separate accounts for exchange on interest payments, the whole amount being borne by the ordinary revenue account. "It can readily fee seen that this procedure has the effect of under-stating the expenditure of the accounts affected and the published figures do not disclose the true position of the various undertaking^. "No adjustment for exchange is made in any of the departmental accounts within the Consolidated Fund, and although this does not affect the position of the -fund as a whole, the departmental accounts and balance sheets of those departments whose ext penditure is made through the Consolidated Fund are' misleading and inaccurate."