PATRIOTIC FUNDS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 762, 20 July 1916, Page 8

PATRIOTIC FUNDS.

AUDITING THE ACCOUNTS. A CHARGE COMPLAINED OF. [From our own Parliamentary Reporter.J WELLINGTON, July 19. In the House of Representatives to-day, Mr J. T. M. Hornsby (Wairarapa) asked if the accounts of patriotic societies could not be audited without charge. At present the charges upon patriotic societies for the auditing of their accounts were as much as nine or ten guineas. The Hon. G. W. Russell said that, under the War Funds Act, it was provided that the auditing of war funds was under the control of the Audit Department. With their ordinary work to do it was impossible for the department to undertake the work, and therefore it was done by outside officers, whose services were requisitioned, and for which they were paid the ordinary fee. He was not aware that any profit whatever was being made by the department. It could not be expected that the department should pay out of the State funds for the audit of patriotic accounts, seeing that there was nearly two millions of money in the hands of the patriotic societies of New Zealand. / ~ ~