DEFENCE EXPENDITURE COMMISSION.
—-—■ - I'l WORK OS! AUDIT OFFHJS 'jWf ■ '?! By, Telegraph.—Press Aaaooiation. Wellington, April 23. ' . Before the Defence Expenditure ocm-"' mission to-day, Colonel E. J- Collins,' ?. Audit-Controler-General, gave evident . as to the aud'uSmg of war accounts. He''s stated that wfcen claims were observed, ,4 by the Auditor-General which showed .fj what seemed unreasonable expenditmajj| or waste oi; public money, ho It liis duty to call the Minister's fittonya tion to it. Tho Minister had not objected to his challenging items. Both, /J the Minister and officer commanding as," ?k sisted 3iim-in every way in carrying ottt ;jA his duties. The charge for }i made against tho New Zealand > Fares;'|j was Is per day per at uaißnoU»'>¥ but lias risen to 7s 114 in France. Ttterß had been some delay in paying men discharge, but it was partly owing tho delay in receiving the guittaßce roflf from the paymaster in Londonroll now in New Zealand was up t*)V' J December last. ' » No cases of fraud: with regard to prib* '"4 lie moneys for war purpose? had coanß under his notice, but iliere had beenj|| cases in which tho allotment of moneyf-fe had been fraudulently obtained, cases of officers of the Defence Depart-'«§ ment failing to account for moneys pass-; ing through their hands, hut in nwsfci,® case® these had been recovered. Defence officers resented the queries the Audit Office a reflection on titerr 'ijf personal integrity. He did not regard his statutory powers as requiring him express an opinion on the subject of ftd'.-,.® ministrative extravagance. FURTHER EVIDENCE. -.1 ■ - Wellington, Last Night. At tho afterooon sitting of the De« v .i fence Expenditure Commission, Archi- r -j| bald Walker, surveyor to Lloyd'e Register and a member of the Transport % Board, gave an account of how altera- ■*;j tions we're made to ships to fit them oat ',p of transports. While a timekeeper r was put on board to check the tima worked on any ship there was no pro- *\ per check on the material used. Ow-, | tractors were paid by time, receiving IQ -j iper cent, on the outlay. ? ( '| The Chairman: But the fundamental : principle of this method is to check, thtf jjy outlay! Witness: That has never been done. '- - The Chairman: We must look tatq;,.! this. We must postpone your evidence* ' It opens up a new field of investigi* tion. Ask your colleagues to meet and i .v see how best they can bring it before ■ • us. What we want to know is: whut - checks have there been on tho fitting <• • out of ships in the last two yeari- ( . v!-4 Colonel Hiley, general manager ol railways, explained how he caine to geW:j military appointment. He received M "p'| pay and no allowance for tHs woifc Witness denied that the engineer offiasi in charge At FeatSierston had no powM to put in a new pane of glass is 4 ,if broken window without a 1 j ■ Wellington. ■ ' . ■ ■ VJ
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19180424.2.44
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Taranaki Daily News, 24 April 1918, Page 5
Word count
Tapeke kupu
487DEFENCE EXPENDITURE COMMISSION. Taranaki Daily News, 24 April 1918, Page 5
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Taranaki Daily News. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.