✨ Financial Audit Report
170
the public service, and for defraying the charge of the Government for the period commencing on the 1st day of July, 1866, and ending on the 30th day of June, 1867, the amount set forth in the Schedules to the Ordinance; and I am prohibited by the Audit Act from attaching my certificate to any warrant in excess of or without such Appropriation, unless accompanied by a special order from the Superintendent directing me to certify.
There has been imported into the financial year not only the whole of the expenditure on account of Salaries belonging to the month of June, 1866, but a large amount of liability outstanding at the close of the past year, and for which the Council should have been asked to make special provision in the Appropriation Act for the current year. This liability, I find, amounted to £16,500, and had been paid prior to the Audit Act coming into operation, and it had accordingly to be brought into the account for the year 1866-67, and to be dealt with as part of the Ordinary Expenditure of the year.
But the inconvenience does not rest there. Special provision has been made for the expenditure of the departments of Government incurred during twelve months ending 30th June, 1867, while there will be brought to account the cost and charges of those departments for thirteen months.
It has been customary in former years to treat the salaries for the month of June, and certain current liabilities, as part of the expenditure chargeable upon the ensuing financial year. It was to avoid this, that in a letter I had the honor to address to the Council in December last, I endeavoured to point out the necessity for making full provision in the Appropriation Act for all the requirements of the Province within the financial year; but it seems that in the preparation of the Act, the necessity for its harmony with the Audit Act was overlooked.
Six months of the year, during which a large expenditure had been incurred, had elapsed before the Appropriation Act was passed. I know it was questioned whether I was justified in regarding the expenditure up to the 1st of January, when the Audit Act came into force, as liable to its operation; but the Appropriation Act itself, although passed in January, was to be retrospective, and the past expenditure of the Government was surely intended by the Provincial Council to be considered as part of its Vote for the financial year. No other course was open for me than to bring the whole expenditure within the scope of the Act, and I accordingly thought it my duty to confine the Superintendent’s special orders for the issue of money as far as possible within the limits prescribed by the Act, even at the risk of subjecting the Government to some inconvenience by doing so.
The Council will therefore have to pass, either an indemnity for the unvoted Expenditure belonging to the year 1865-66, or it must deal with it, as I have done, as part of the current Expenditure; and, in order to avoid any future difficulty arising under Clause XV of the Audit Act,
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Canterbury Provincial Gazette 1867, No 35
✨ LLM interpretation of page content
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Auditor's Report for Quarters Ending Sept. 30, Dec. 31, 1866, and March 31, 1867
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💰 Finance & Revenue11 June 1867
Financial statements, Receipts, Disbursements, Comparative statement, Provincial Council