STATE ACCOUNTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19456, 15 October 1937, Page 3

STATE ACCOUNTS

DELAY IN PUBLICATION BLAME LAID ON SYSTEM COMMENT OF AUDITOR (Parliament ary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. The opinion that a considerable amount of delay in the publication of the annual accounts could be avoided by the Treasury’s observance of statutory requirements and by more timely action on the part of departments is expressed by the Controller and Auditor-General, Mr. .). H. Fowler, in his report to Parliament for the 193(1-37 financial year which was presented in the House of Representatives yesterday. The Audit Office, he said, was anxious to assist the Government in every possible way by expediting the publication of the public accounts and by dealing with them as promptly as possible. Mr. Fowler said that one of the reasons that had been offered for the delay in the publication of the annual accounts was that the audited figures were not available. This statement might reasonably give rise to an impression that the delay was attributable largely to the work of examination and not to the method of public accounting in New Zealand’, which, in actual fact, was the reason for the late presentation of the figures. It was recalled by Mr. Fowler that the matter was the subject of comment in tlie Controller and AuditorGeneral's report of 1934, when a comparison ol the British and New Zealand systems disclosed the difficulties of ascertaining the result of the year's operations in New Zealand as expeditiously as in Great Britain. The Treasury, said Mr. Fowler, had under consideration a scheme for amalgamating certain particulars in the Abstract of the Public Accounts and publishing a simpler and' more concise form that would show clearly the main features of the year’s operations. "Apart from condensing the accounts,” Mr. Fowler continued, "it is sound financial policy to establish more effective Parliamentary control and criticism over Government expenditure by approoirating grants annually. A large proportion of the expenditure in New Zealand is appropriated without estimates being submitted to Parliament. “Sir Otto Niemeyer referred to this unusual arrangement and suggested that a number of the services could lie more suitably provided. In England direct or recurring charges on the Consolidated Fund are authorised by special statutory provision, but there is a disinclination to use permanent appropriations in any cases which could satisfactorily be provided for by an annual vote."