AUDIT DEPARTMENT AND TRUST COMMISSIONERS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9090, 23 May 1891, Page 2

AUDIT DEPARTMENT AND TRUST COMMISSIONERS.

The Wellington correspondent wires to the Christchurch Press : — The examination of the Auditor-General and of the Audit Department officers by tbe Royal Commia sion produced some sharp verbal encounters, the Auditor-General (who is rather an " ugly customer" to tackle in debate) at last declaring he would not answer any more questions, or permit his officers to- do so, unless they were treated with more consideration. I understand that one point of dispute between the Cominissidners and the witnesses was as to the form of, certain entries which the Commissioners insisted were inaccurate, and should have been condemned by the Audit Department, while the Audit officers maintained that the entries were strictly in accordance with the requirements of the law; and could not have been different without being in contravention of the law, The Commissioners, I hear, next endeavored to extract from the witnesses an expression of opinion that the law might, therefore, be altered so as to compel the entries to be made in the form preferred by^ one of the Commissioners, but the witnesses generally declined to commit themselves to such au expression of opinion without due consideration, as the alleged defect consisted mainly _ in the law not agreeing with the Commissioners' opinion of what it ought to be, and, judging from what has transpired as to the direction taken by the Commissioners' enquiries, those gentlemen appear to be under a misconception touching the duties of the Audit Department as prescribed by law, and to mistake its functions for those of an Inspector, which it does not legally possess, but which, in . the opinion of the Publio Trust officers themselves, ought to be vested in some officer and freely exercised.