M.E.D.’s Excellent Trading 'Year

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29238, 23 June 1960, Page 14

M.E.D.’s Excellent Trading 'Year

The Municipal Electricity Department of ’ the Christchurch City Council has had another excellent trading year. The previous year’s surplus of £160,078 was exceeded in 195960, the acccunts for which show a surplus of £ allowing for sinking fund and loan repayments. Moreover, during the 1959-60 financial year consumers received a rebate of 12J per cent on all two-raonthly OctoberNovember accounts, and a prorata allowance for quarterly accounts. Last year the M.E.D. made tariff reductions to all classes of consumers, 2 per cent, for domestic, 21 per cent, for institutions, and 14 per cent, for commercial light and heat and for the bulk rate. By “ Govern- “ ment edict ”, as the then chairman of the electricity committee (Cr. L. G. Amos) put it, domestic consumers had received earlier in the year a rebate of approximately 7 per cent, on the published charges when the Minister temporarily reduced the price for bulk power. The very satisfactory surplus justified the chairman of the electricity committee (Cr. W. S. Mac Gibbon) recommending “ £75,000 worth “ of concessions ” to consumers

as soon as possible. As last year, all classes of consumers will benefit commercial and industrial more than domestic consumers, who in Christchurch enjoy one of the lowest tariffs in New Zealand. There is everything to be said for encouraging industry in the M.E.D. area and for helping rather than handicapping industry and commerce. Since it has been laid down time and again that the M.E.D. is a non-profit-making organisation which operates for the benefit of its consumers, the large surpluses of the last two years may seem strange to many. It must be remembered, however, that a fractional change in the tariffs could turn a arge surplus into a heavy deficit Budgeting should, however, be easier in future. The days when electricity undertakings did not know from month to month how much power they would have to sell should now be past Ripple control permits some regulation of maximum demand; and the M.E.D. has completed tariff adjustments necessitated by changes in the costs of bulk supply, Perhaps before long the M.E.D.’s estimating will be as efficient as the other phases of its management