Despite the mistakes by government ministers, the Prime Minister will stand to defend his record and try to support his ministers who have made serious mistakes such as the billion dollar boondoggle and the solicitor general's actions in the House during the APEC incident.

Public performance reporting, be it financial or otherwise, is a risky business for public sector organizations, either in the sense of getting it wrong and being seen to have gotten it wrong and being subject to criticism, or in getting it right and telling a performance story, albeit accurately and fairly, but obviously then the people who read that performance story are not satisfied with the results, and criticism ensues.

For instance, its balance sheet — which constitutes one of the main tools for the content and timing of market intervention — was grossly incorrect and based on a flawed methodology.

That error in the forecast supply balance for the Canary Islands should consequently be corrected.

The Council, while noting the fact that the revenue and expenditure account and the consolidated balance sheet faithfully reflect the revenue and expenditure for the financial year at 31 December 2000, remains concerned by the persistence of recurring errors and inadequacies which led the Court to express reservations on the subject, particularly as regards information on advances and payments on account, the overstatement of commitments still outstanding, "off-balance-sheet" commitments corresponding to legal obligations that have no ...[+++]t been the subject of the required budgetary commitments and the lack of budgetary commitments.

(*) The Statement of Assurance (SoA) Declaration The Court is of the opinion that: (i) the accounts as drawn up at 31 December 1994 accurately reflect the revenue and expenditure, as well as the financial situation, of the Union; the informative value of these accounts should however be improved in several important respects which call for reservations by the Court; (ii) the Court's examination of the revenue entered in the accounts in respect of traditional own resources did not reveal any significant errors; however, it is obviously not possible to give an assurance that all chargeable imports have actually been declared and have yi ...[+++]elded the corresponding revenue; (iii) regarding the expenditure, there are too many errors in the transactions underlying the payments entered in the accounts for the Court to be able to give a positive global assurance as to their legality/regularity. The audit performed The accounts upon which the statement is given are those contained in volume IV of the consolidated revenue and expenditure accounts and balance sheets (1.5).