WAITEMATA COUNTY COUNCIL FINANCE.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 11 July 1918, Page 3

WAITEMATA COUNTY COUNCIL FINANCE.

To the Editor.

Sir, —Would you please allow me space remarks on the report by Mr to the Waitemata County which appeared in your issue of last. It would seem as if the appeared after Friday, June 28th, it appeared in the Eden Gazette May 23rd. I would like to ask why H^rthe Chairman and member for Mairetahi Riding did not see that the report was handed to you for publication, so that ' the ratepayers could see how nicely the books of the Council have been kept. The portion of the report which I wish < to deal with is as follows: ] * "It would appear that in spite of the , notification and legal opinion therein * / received Councillors have gone on V working on the old system of balances. The Clerk assures me that the Council B was from tim'e'to time informed afresh W 'of the balance, differences, but the one X thing necessary to do to realise the r whole position, and which evidently was I , not done, was to read the printed ■~ ,, r balance sheet and compare results. A ■ * very cursory examination would have H shown the very widely differing results B^, and enabled steps to be taken to have ■" proper figures tabled at each meeting." I propose to reply to the above statemeht before dealing with the next sentence. . Mr Wright in , placing the onus on the Councillors does so because the Clerk assures him that Councillors "were from time to time warned of the 11 difference. I will undertake to show H-. that such was not the case, and for the BS$., Rood reason that we could not get the Bl^ 4 * printed balance sheets to know how B*. they were made out and much less t compare them. The Audit balance sheets were kept back' for months and years, although I , continually pro - itested against the delay in producing In further proof of this, I will what took place at a Council I took with me two balance from the Hobson County Council had been 'posted to me, and the BBP^wK^lp^o's" I .received them in bore the HfV ; fojflowing post-mark, Helensville April 10 p, 1916, the other April 7 1917, or 7 and 10 i daysv after the end of their financial | -j : years. In handing them to the ChairIV, man I stated I had brought those balance sheets to show how the Hobson ;. ■ County keep their accounts up-to-date 'I,'. and we have'neither of those for our 1' ; : County although we are months past ■#■■■•. the end of the second financial year. In further proof of my statement, when we ' ,did at last get the two statements I . '^v refer to, the Auditor General in returning them sent a covering letter which 1 . the Clerk placed on the order paper for ■ the next meeting in a condensed form; W jriien it had been read I asked that the be produced and read in full, and discovered that the vital part the Councillors were concerned left ('quietly out in its conform, and the letter read as : "If ,the Councillors do not see the'balance sheets, are got out up-to-date I shall prosecute them." raised my protest against the concealan important matter, and the was again white-washed, as further was said. will now deal with the next sentence Mr Wright's report—" It is not that figures or accounts have been but that Councillors seem J!ha,ve failed to grasp the requirements ■ of the law and the-proper system of ■ ' accountancy and allocations necessary I, under the same." This statement I con- ■ elude Mr Wright also makes under 'the ■ belief that the Clerk's statements were \jtj true and correct that Councillors were Bfcr'^aware of the difference in the balances, bht what 1 have already written willfe I think, clearly show that we did not Ket balance sheets to compare. What I cannot understand is that the two exChairmen who are still in the Council should sit there and allow a reflection to Jie .cast on the Councils of which they were Chairmen without raising their protest. I as one of those Councillors strongly protest against any reflection cast on me, for I have for over four years tried and moved to get an accountant put in the office to do the work Mr Wright is now doing, but I was defeated. I was not there to the Clerk or any other official, do my duty to the ratepayers, it rpiiyL'7\p^imvelseeri apprecichanges all things. In I do hot wish it to be thought to Mr Wright in any way, he is endeavouring to solve a and is stating things as he find them out.—l am, etc., ' :: James McLeod. July 7, 1918,