While an independent company investigates the spending of former Capital Health executives in the wake of a spending scandal, critics have said the move doesn’t go far enough.

The response came weeks after the lavish expenses of former Capital Health and Alberta Health Services CFO Allaudin Merali were made public.

Documents showed that Merali spent more than $340,000 in taxpayer money – with expenses ranging from thousands on a single dinner, to opera tickets, butler fees and car payments on a luxury vehicle.

AHS said in a written statement that auditor Ernst and Young started working on the case last week; they’re reviewing expense documents, not only from Merali, but other executives as well, dating between 2005 and 2009.

The results of the audit will be passed on to the Auditor General, and the Ministry of Health – when they will be made public.

There’s no set schedule for the audit, AHS officials said the timeline depends on what auditors uncover.

Scott Hennig with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said while it’s a good sign that a wider investigation is being carried out – there’s still more that could be done.

“Transparency will cure a lot of these things, and will keep a lot of bureaucrats in other departments in line,” Hennig said.

Hennig pointed to the City of Toronto as an example, where councillor’s expenses are posted publicly.

“Even Allaudin Merali right now wishes he would have had transparency, because he would have not expensed a butler service had he known we would have been talking about it on the news,” Hennig said.

Although Hennig called the audit necessary, he admitted the report won’t show wrongdoing.

“You can’t violate rules when there are virtually none, so they are getting away from the ‘Who violated the rules’ to looking at what was expensed.”

The audit is being conducted for a budget of $75,000 – however; AHS officials admitted the cost could increase depending on the audit’s results.

Both AHS and the Health Minister Fred Horne were asked for comment, however neither were available.

With files from Sonia Sunger