True and fair
I AM sure that the Paymaster General was never paid £200,000 as chairman of Hollis Industries, even if the accounts say he was, and even if he wrote a letter (reprinted this week) suggesting that £200,000 would be about right. Geoffrey Robinson says that he never had the money, so his entry in the register of MPs' interests is right, and the accounts were wrong. That is what I find odd. A company's accounts are the respon- sibility of its directors. The law obliges them to keep proper records and to pre- pare accounts that give a true and fair view of the company's affairs, of which the chair- man's salary is one. They are required to report what he was paid. The auditors are there to form their own opinion of the accounts and to pass it on to the sharehold- ers. Any auditor with any savvy will expect the chairman of a company to read what its accounts say about his salary, even if he is busy and even if he reads nothing else. I suppose that Mr Robinson was very busy.
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