Alberta's Conservative government is trying to muzzle the auditor general by denying him funding to print a spring report, the NDP said Thursday.

Auditor General Fred Dunn, who criticized the government last month for failing to collect billions of dollars in royalties, requested $20,000 to publish a spring report in addition to his current fall report.

Auditor General Fred Dunn requested $20,000 to publish a spring report.
(CBC)

The legislative offices committee, led by Conservative MLA Denis Ducharme, rejected Dunn's request Wednesday night.

"He's obviously become a very effective auditor general and a thorn in the government's side," NDP Leader Brian Mason said Thursday.

"The government is taking this action in order to prevent him from being able to release an auditor-general's report into government waste and mismanagement at a time when they might be in a spring election."

Dunn came down hard on former energy ministers and staff in this year's report, saying the government knew at least three years ago that it was losing billions of dollars in royalties owed by energy companies that were never collected.

"They're clearly unhappy with his reporting on the royalty issue which caused them severe embarrassment and they don't want him reporting twice a year," said Mason.

"They'd like to have one big report and get all the pain over with at once."

'They'd like to have one big report and get all the pain over with at once.'— Brian Mason, Alberta NDP leader

Mason said the federal auditor general releases three or four reports a year, so Alberta's counterpart should receive support to report more than once a year.

Ducharme and fellow MLA George Vanderburg aggressively questioned Dunn Wednesday about his reporting on Alberta's royalty system and then denied the $20,000 request.

NDP MLA Raj Pannu was the only opposing vote; two Liberal members of the committee left before the motion was introduced.

Ducharme dismissed suggestions his government is trying to punish Dunn, and said the auditor general should be able to find the money elsewhere in his $21-million budget.