ELECTRIC ENERGY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 15

ELECTRIC ENERGY.

USE OF RESERVE FUND.

COMMENT BY MINISTER.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Friday.

"No money will ever go out of our fund to help the Consolidated Fund until all the people of New Zealand, from the North Cape to the Bluff, receive the benefits of electricity," said the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple, referring to a statement made at the annual conference of the Electric Supply Authority Engineers' Association.

"I have noticed in newspaper reports of your meetings that you have been warned by one of your leading officials that ft large sum of money appropriated from the Electrical Department had been used for the benefit of the. Consolidated Fund," said the Minister, when opening the annual conference of the Electric Power Boards and Supply Authorities' Association. "I am afraid the speaker must have misunderstood the position. I believe he may have referred to the statement that the sum of £437,000 from the electric supply account would be available after paying interest, sinking fund and operating expenses for expenditure on construction works. These works, however, are solely for electric supply purposes. "There is no question of using money in reserve# created under the provisions of the State Supply of Electrical Energy Act for purposes outside those prescribed tby the Act."