CASH BALANCES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26479, 5 June 1947, Page 8

CASH BALANCES

THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS MR HOLLAND RETURNS TO CHARGE PA. CHRISTCHURCH, June 4. “Mr Nordmeyer, with all his clever twisting of figures, has not disproved a single figure I used in my analysis. All he has done is to twist the figures to make them appear what they are not,’’ said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr S. G. Holland, to-day, replying to the answer to his analysis of the national accounts made by the Acting Minister of Finance, Mr Nordmeyer. “It would be quite impossible for the public to follow any controversy on the country’s finance without having before them the original figures, which very few people will have retained,” Mr Holland continued. “An Enormous Total” “ Someone has said that it is possible to do anything with figures, and Mr Nordmeyer has proved the truth of that statement in his reply to my original analysis of the national accounts. There has been a huge surplus on the year’s operations which, when added to the balances brought forward at the beginning of the year, makes an enormous total. “The transfer of £18,000,000 from the Consolidated Fund to the Social Security Account, the transfer of a further' £3,000,000 from the Consolidated Fund to the War Expenses Account, which started the year with over £11,000,000 in hand, and, finally, the payment from the War Expenses Account of £12,500,000 to Britain, which had not been even mentioned in the Budget, all add to the confusion which Mr Nordmeyer is so expert' in creating. But it does not alter the fact that the consolidation of three main public accounts finished up the financial year with cash actually in hand many millions of pounds in excess of what the Minister wishes the public to believe. , Surplus in Each Account “ It is no use Mr Nordmeyer saying that no taxation is credited to the War Expenses Account, as he stated himself that the sum of £3,000,000 was transferred to that account from the Consolidated Fund, which obtains its revenue from taxation. My view is that the surpluses in all three accounts should be added together to show the true position of the year’s operations, whereas Mr Nordmeyer says that it is sufficient to disclose the surplus in only one account —the Consolidated Fund. “A third point of difference is that I hold that, in presenting the accounts, the balance brought forward at the beginning of the year should be clearly shown, and when added to the surplus on the year’s operations gives the true state of the accounts at the end of the year, whereas Mr Nordmeyer prefers to say nothing about the huge balances brought forward.”