COATES MASKING RAILWAY LOSSES SAYS HOLLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18465, 17 May 1928, Page 9

COATES MASKING RAILWAY LOSSES SAYS HOLLAND.

CHANGE NEEDED IN RAILWAYS ACCOUNTING. Fer Press Association. WESTPORT, May 17. In a statement to the Press to-day, Mr H. E. Holland, leader of the Opposition, expressed the opinion that a change was necessary in the railways system of accounting, if the public were to be permitted to have a clear knowledge of the financial results of the yearly operations of the Railway Department. It was agreed, of course, that whatever losses were made by any Department must in the end be borne by the Consolidated Fund, but that was no reason why such losses should not be clearly stated. The figures furnished by Mr Coates at Paparoa were likely to be wholly misleading to the general public. Mr Coates’s statement showed a deficit of £293,479, whereas the actual loss was £783,047. The smaller amount proclaimed by Mr Coates was arrived at by taking £489,568 from the Consolidated Fund and passing it through the Railways Accourtfc-as if net revnue. Mr Holland points out that in 1926 a deficit of £338,518 was transformed into a surplus of £21,022 by transferring £359,540 from the Consolidated Fund and calling it railway revenue, while in 1927 the actual loss of £544,880 was made to appear to the casual observer as a deficit of only £99,659, by similarly transferring £445,221 and treating it as railway revenue.