Cap. 174 Art. 2Interpretation.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires -

"accounting officer" means a person holding or acting in the office of permanent head of a government department and includes every person who is charged with the duty of collecting, receiving or accounting for, or who in fact collects, receives or accounts for, any public moneys, or who is charged with the duty of disbursing, or who does in fact disburse, any public moneys, and every person who is charged with the receipt, custody or disposal of, or the accounting for, public stores, or who in fact receives, holds or disposes of public stores: Provided that where there is in force a direction in writing by the Minister that the duties, functions and responsibilities of an accounting officer specified in the direction shall vest exclusively in one or more public officers as is so specified, "accounting officer", in respect of the said duties, functions and responsibilities and to the extent specified in the said direction, means and includes only the public officer or public officers specified as aforesaid;

"bank" means any bank which for the time being is entrusted with the keeping of public moneys of the Government of Malta;

"Consolidated Fund" means the Consolidated Fund established by article 102 of the Constitution of Malta;

"Constitution" means the Constitution of Malta; "estimates" means the estimates, presented to the House of Representatives in respect of any financial year, of the expenditure for the service of that financial year and includes any supplementary estimates of expenditure for which it may be necessary to provide after the estimates have been presented to the House of Representatives;

"financial year" has the meaning as it has for the purposes of the Constitution; "internal audit" shall have the same meaning assigned to it by article 2 of the Internal Audit and Financial Investigations Act; "irregularity" means an act or omission by any person in breach of a contractual agreement with the Government or in breach of any relevant provision of law or of any act the binding force of which derives from any treaty or international agreement entered into by Malta; "Malta" has the same meaning as is assigned to it by article 124 of the Constitution of Malta; "Minister" means the Minister responsible for finance;

"public moneys" means all revenue, loan, trust and other funds received or managed or held by, for or on account of the Government, including moneys which the Government pays out or moneys collected or received for or on account of the Consolidated Fund; "vote" means a separate head of the estimates or a main division of the appropriation by the House of Representatives for the service of a financial year.