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B-173761 1 (1978-03-17)

handle is hein.gao/gaobachko0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 6 32 UNITED STATES GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE WASHINGTON, D.C. 20548 o- GENERAL COUNSEL B-1 73761 March 17, 1978 Thomas J. Hamilton, Esquire Western Exploration and Production Division Getty Oil Company P.O. Box 5237 Bakersfield, California 93308 Dear Mr. Hamilton: This is in response to your letter of January 31, 1978, addr sed to the Secretary of the Interior, in which you requested copies f the certification of certain accounts settled by GAO. The Depart nt of Interior referred your request to this agency for response. Specifi- cally, you requested copies of the settlement for each monthly account - of royalty payments made by Getty Oil Company for production of petro- leum products from Naval Petroleum Reserve leases for a particular period of time. Your letter cites the Freedom of Information Act (5.U.S.C. 552). As an agency responsible to Congress, the General Accounting Office is not subject to the provisions of that Act. It is our policy, however, to make our records available to the public to the extent disclosure is consistent with our function and responsibilities to the Congress and is not prohibited by law. We have issued regulations concerning the availability of GAO records to the public. These regulations are con- tained in Part 81 of title 4 of the Code of Federal Regulations. We consider your request as having been made pursuant to these regulations. GAO's responsibility to settle accounts of accountable officers does not require the issuance of a certificate .or other explicit accept- ance of the statement of accountability. Therefore, GAO does not issue certificates of settlement of accounts unless a basis for taking excep- tion to a payment reflected in such accounts exists. As a general rule, we fulfill our settlement responsibilities by performing selective audits of financial management systems in conjunction with our more broadly based audits rather than by examining specific accounts. A review of our records reveals that the accounts for which you requested copies of ___ *. :< ... !<f?. 5 < ....3 F