E.P.S. Billets

Hutt News, Volume 16, Issue 38, 17 March 1943, Page 2

E.P.S. Billets

HUTT COUNCIL. PROTESTS AT COST j ; Complaints at the cost to the Lower Hutt City Council of some Emergency Fire Service billets at 'Hutt Tark were made at a meeting of the council last week. It was claimed' that the billeting of the men was unnecessary, and that the council was not getting the protection for which it was paying. The subject had been before the council previously, and in correspondence with the Dominion Fire Controller, Mr. R. Girling Butcher, the council had said it did not propose to accept financial responsibility for the billets after March 6, and that it appeared the same protection could be obtained without the men being billeted. The Mayor, Mr. ,T. W. Andrews, said the council had been treated in a high-handed manner, articles having been purchased for the billets without the consent of the council, and the accounts not sent to the council, but the cost deducted from the Government subsidy. That was a kind of dictatorship that the council had not experienced before. The council paid somebody 35/- a week for food for each of the 16 men who were supposed to be in billets every night, but there had been a suspicion that the men wfere not always there. A boarding house keeper had offered to cater at 27/6 per head. : Recently a tally o£ the men in the billets and their attendance at meals had been taken, and it was found that the number in billets varied between two and nine, with fewer present at meals. "That gives you an idea of what we are being bled for," he said. There was-reason to believe that that had .been the position for some time. The cost of two weeks' catering| amounted to £249. Cr. G. L Giesen said they should protest very strongly at the manner in which the Government treated them over the accounts, deducting the amounts without allowing them to inspect the accounts, and Cr. H.' F. Muir said the system of protection against the large fires that might break out at Hutt Park was inadequate and a waste of time and money. The council decided to decline fur ther financial responsibility for the billets, and to protest most strongly against the method of making deduc tions from the amounts due to it without it being given an opportunity of checking the accounts.