Minister disputes Wattie charge

Press, 1 June 1977, Page 7

Minister disputes Wattie charge

; PA Wellington Revaluation of assets was not taken into account when the Department of Trade and Industry approved price increases for J. Wattie Canneries, Ltd, the Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr Adams-Schneider) said on Monday. Fie was commenting on a claim by the Opposition spokesman on Consumer Affairs (Mr R. O. Douglas, Manukau), who said that the Government was being led by Wattie’s to approve unnecessary price increases. Mr Douglas said Wattie’s had revalued their land and buildings by SI6M and were now demanding an adequate return on “those book-1 keeping-created costs.” “Mr Douglas should know that it has been a standard I practice for the revaluation! of assets to be deducted from! shareholders’ funds in de-'

•termining the prices of goods and services, subject to price control under the Commerce Act,” Mr Adams-Schneider said. “In setting the prices of J. Wattie Canneries, Ltd—or any other part of Wattie’s Industries which produces Category A items—the deIpartment had not taken the revaluation of assets into account,” the Minister said. Comments made by Mr Douglas were factually incorrect and done for “political reasons,” Wattie’s managing director, Mr Gordon Wattie, said in Hastings yesterday. Mr Wattie said that Mr Douglas’s statement “just isn’t right,” and that it was a matter for Mr AdamsSchneider to “correct an M.P. who doesn’t seem to understand the regulations or how they operate.” Because the company is classified Category A, it can

; only recover proven costs, and shareholders’ funds i “don’t come into it,” Mr Wat- ■ tie said. The revaluation Mr Douglas quoted, was carried out in 1974 and had been ■ in the last two annual re- : ports. i “He’s making it sound like a new thing. It’s normal ' practice, otherwise we i wouldn’t be showing shareholders our true assets,” Mr Wattie said. Atomic arms rejected India will not develop a nuclear arsenal even if the whole world acquired atomic weapons, the Indian Prime Minister (Mr Morarji Desai) has said in an interview in the latest issue of the West German weekly magazine, “Der Spiegel.” India was interested only in peaceful uses of atomic energy, the Prime Minister said.