# Proposed scheme for the Accounts of the Water and Drainage Department.
544
The Accounts of an Engineering Department have two principal objects.
(a) To enable the Head of the Department to render accounts to the Head of the Government of the sums entrusted to him by Vote of Council.
(b) To give the Head of the Department the means of ascertaining in detail the cost of the different classes of work performed under his direction and to show exactly and to date the total expenditure on every work and if necessary on different portions thereof.
2. To satisfy these requirements, the accounts of the Department should show at any moment not merely the cash paid from the Treasury but the liabilities which have been incurred by the Government.
In other words, every sum should be accounted for as soon as possible after the Government has become liable for its payment, whether the payment has been actually made by the Treasury or not.
3. For the construction of Public Works, stores and materials have to be imported through the Crown Agents or purchased locally.
4. Under existing circumstances, imported stores are only brought to account at the end of the year when the Crown Agents' Accounts are adjusted. Until this happens, no trace of the cost of the stores appears in the Departmental books, though the stores may have been actually used on works. The books therefore give the most erroneous information as to the real expenditure.
5. Again, all stores imported or purchased locally are charged direct to some Vote. It is not possible to do this with any approach to accuracy, for in a great many cases it is wholly impossible to determine beforehand the purposes for which the stores will be applied.
6.
Page 544
(To be continued on next page)
Or
2. D. 72 g 19 7e b
should be removed as it seems to be an OCR error or unrelated text. Here is the revised version:# Proposed scheme for the Accounts of the Water and Drainage Department.
544
The Accounts of an Engineering Department have two principal objects.
(a) To enable the Head of the Department to render accounts to the Head of the Government of the sums entrusted to him by Vote of Council.
(b) To give the Head of the Department the means of ascertaining in detail the cost of the different classes of work performed under his direction and to show exactly and to date the total expenditure on every work and if necessary on different portions thereof.
2. To satisfy these requirements, the accounts of the Department should show at any moment not merely the cash paid from the Treasury but the liabilities which have been incurred by the Government.
In other words, every sum should be accounted for as soon as possible after the Government has become liable for its payment, whether the payment has been actually made by the Treasury or not.
3. For the construction of Public Works, stores and materials have to be imported through the Crown Agents or purchased locally.
4. Under existing circumstances, imported stores are only brought to account at the end of the year when the Crown Agents' Accounts are adjusted. Until this happens, no trace of the cost of the stores appears in the Departmental books, though the stores may have been actually used on works. The books therefore give the most erroneous information as to the real expenditure.
5. Again, all stores imported or purchased locally are charged direct to some Vote. It is not possible to do this with any approach to accuracy, for in a great many cases it is wholly impossible to determine beforehand the purposes for which the stores will be applied.
6.
Page 544