Treasurer Must Force Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust to Open its Books: Greens
The ongoing failure of the Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust to comply with requests from the Auditor-General to open its books so that financial and performance audits could be undertaken was unacceptable and the NSW Treasurer must act to force the CMCT to comply with the Auditor-General’s requests, said Cate Faehrmann, Greens MP.
The comments follow the Auditor-General’s Special Report into the financial affairs of the Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust released this morning which revealed that the Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust has disputed the NSW Treasury’s determination that the CMCT is a controlled entity of the state and has repeatedly failed to comply with the Auditor-General’s request for access to documents required to undertake a performance audit.
“It’s completely unacceptable that the CMCT not only continues to refuse to submit itself to audit but faces virtually no consequences for doing so,” said Ms Faehrmann.
“The Treasurer has a responsibility to take every action available to him to force the CMCT to comply with the Auditor-General’s directions, particularly given the fact that the financial audit of the state’s accounts were impacted as a result of not being able to assess the whole picture. The Treasurer must outline how he plans on ensuring that the Audit Office will get unhindered access to the CMCT’s books as quickly as possible.
“Instead of holding the CMCT to account, the NSW Government has been working towards a deal to give them control of Crown burial land that stands to provide them with an incredible windfall.
“Clearly the CMCT has something big to hide. This should be raising alarm bells around how the CMCT will operate when given control of huge swathes of Crown burial land.
“The NSW Government cannot move ahead with any deal with the CMCT while they continue to resist their obligations to be audited,” said Ms Faehrmann.