Cap. 601 Art. 2Interpretation.    Cap. 396.  Cap. 534.   Cap. 461.    Cap. 461.   Cap. 461.      Cap. 396.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:

"Accountant General" means the chief accounting officer of the Government who shall be vested with, or performing, the functions of the Office of Accountant General, and having general management and supervision of the consolidated Government accounting operations;

*See Legal Notice 283 of 2019. "accounting officer" means a person holding or acting in the office of a Permanent Secretary, Head of a government department or a Financial Controller 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 the Minister directs in writing that the duties, functions and responsibilities of an accounting officer shall be vested exclusively in one or more specified public employees, accounting officer, in respect of the said duties, functions and responsibilities and to the extent specified in the said direction, means only the specified public employee or public employees;

"accounting system" means the accounting standards, policies and the electronic accounting software system either adopted or authorised by the Ministry responsible for finance;

"appropriation act" shall have the same meaning as that assigned to it by the Constitution;

"asset" means a resource presently controlled by a ministry, department or public entity as a result of a past event and from which future economic benefits or service potential are expected to flow to the ministry, department or public entity;

"Auditor General" means the Auditor General appointed in terms of article 108 of the Constitution and regulated by

Auditor General and National Audit Office Act;

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

"budget" shall have the same meaning as that assigned to it under article 2 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act;

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

"Constitution" means the Constitution of Malta;

"contracting authorities" means the State, or local authorities, bodies governed by public law or associations formed by one or more such authorities or one or more such bodies governed by public law; "Contingencies Fund" shall have the same meaning as that assigned to it under article 105 of the Constitution;

"director of internal audit" means the person responsible for internal audit and financial investigations under the Internal

Audit and Financial Investigations Act;

"estimates" means the estimates, presented to the House 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;

"financial year" shall have the same meaning as that assigned to it under article 124 of the Constitution;

"fund" means any fund created under this Act or under any other law for the time being in force in Malta;

"financial management regulations" includes accounting policies, standards, and guidelines for defining the accounting methodology and best accounting practices serving as directives for carrying the provisions of this Act that may be published from time to time in the Gazette;

"financial statements" means a formal record of the financial activities;

"head" or "head of department" means the head of a department of Government appointed in terms of the Constitution and includes any director, manager, secretary or other principal officer of an entity, whether vested with legal personality or not, who is responsible for administering, holding or using public moneys or who is a recipient or beneficiary of public moneys, or who is a person having a power of representation of such an entity or having an authority to take decisions on behalf of that entity or having authority to exercise control within that entity;

"infringement" means an act or omission by any person or persons who breaches any condition stipulated in a contract entered into by the Government or in the law governing any item in the annual budget, or any relevant provision of Maltese law or of any act the binding force of which derives from any treaty or international agreement entered into by Malta;

"internal audit", notwithstanding the provisions of this

Act, means the function established, defined, and regulated by the Internal Audit and Financial Investigations Act;

"investments" means any interest-bearing deposits, shares, securities, loans and debentures in companies or in any body corporate, or any other realisable item of value owned by the Government;

"irregularity" shall have the same meaning as that assigned to it under article 2 of the Internal Audit and Financial

Investigations Act;

"Malta" shall have the same meaning as assigned to it by article 124 of the Constitution;

"Minister" means the Minister responsible for finance;

"permanent secretary" means the public officer appointed to supervise a department of the Government under article 92 of the Constitution;

"person" means any natural or legal person and includes any body of persons;

"the Public Account" means the Public Account established by this Act;

"public administration" means the Government of Malta including its ministries and departments, and the agencies, public entities, commissions and boards referred to in this Act;

"public contract" means contracts for pecuniary interest concluded in writing between one or more economic operators and one or more contracting authorities and having as their object the execution of works, the supply of products or the provision of services;

"public debt" means the public debt as mentioned in article 106 of the Constitution;

"public employee" includes public officers and employees of Government agencies and public entities, or other persons administering public funds or resources as defined by this Act;

"public entities" as used in this Act, includes all agencies, local authorities, corporations, bodies corporate, authorities and all other entities whose power, functions and duties are conferred and assigned by an authority established or constituted by the Constitution or any other law, or any commercial partnership in which the Government has an interest, or whose funding is wholly or partly financed by public funds; "public external financial control" notwithstanding the provisions of this Act, means the function assigned to the

Auditor General and the Deputy Auditor General under the

Constitution and the Auditor General and National Audit Office

Act;

"public funds" means all revenue, loan, trust and other funds received or managed or held by, for or on account of the Government including but not limited to agencies and entities whether having a legal personality or not, including funds which the Government pays out or disburses from funds received from any national, international or supranational organisation or entity or from any of its institutions or entities;

"public internal financial control" means control over finance-related activities of ministries, departments, units and other public bodies falling within the meaning of Government as defined in this article and of all persons with functions and responsibilities within or on behalf of these ministries, departments, units and bodies for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the provisions of this Act and of any regulations made thereunder, or under any other law, and of ensuring the prevention, discovery, and recovery of any public financial loss or deficiency;

"public moneys" shall have the same meaning as that assigned to the definition "public funds";

"public officer" shall have the same meaning as that assigned to it under article 124 of the Constitution;

"relevant provision" for the purposes of this Act, means any provision of any law or Act, governing any financial relationship or obligation, existing or arising in any manner or form, between any person and the Government or any body or fund established under any treaty or international agreement entered into by Malta;

"revenue" means all taxes, imposts, rates, and duties and all other moneys collected or received for or on account of the Consolidated Fund;

"the Treasury Clearance Fund" means the Treasury Clearance Fund established under this Act;

"security" means a financing or investment instrument issued by a company or a government that denotes an ownership interest and provides evidence of a debt, a right to share in the earnings of the issuer, or a right in the distribution of a property. Securities include bonds or stocks, treasury bills, debentures, notes, options, shares, and warrants but not insurance policies, and may be traded in financial markets such as stock exchanges;

"subsidiary accounting system" means any manual or electronic system, which would be subsidiary to the accounting system and in which financial transactions of whatever nature are recorded;

"transitory period" means the period from the implementation of accrual accounting and pertinent accounting systems in the first department, to the entry into force of the regulations made by virtue of article 38(1);

"vote" means a separate head of the estimates or a main division of the appropriation by the House for the service of a financial year.