LOCAL BODIES' LOANS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19124, 16 September 1925, Page 10

LOCAL BODIES' LOANS.

In his projected legislation to establish national oversight of local bodies' expenditure of loan moneys upon public works, Mr. Coates touches helpfully an existing weakness. That big schemes have been prepared by men of limited experience, approved for loan purposes by a vote of ratepayers not fully seized of all details nor competent to judge them, and put through uneconomically, is matter of - common knowledge. There has been little check upon such proposals, and the public interest has not been served as efficiently as it might have been. Approval by the Governor-General-in-Council of loans sanctioned by ratepayers has been merely a formal procedure. Nor has there been any co-ordinated consideration of schemes so propounded and endorsed. Harbour boards' projects have gone to the Marine Department, plans for expending grants on scholastic buildings have been subject to endorsement by the Education Department, and in general the loan expenditure of local authorities has been referred to the Public Works Department, while for large special schemes power has been sought direct from Parliament. The displacement of this piecemeal and somewhat perfunctory care by a system of expert and authoritative advice, as now suggested, has much to commend it. Care should be taken to remove risk of conflict between local bodies and the proposed board. Its advice should be a condition precedent to loan polls, not a judgment on the determinations already reached. Given a body of men expert to deal among them with both the engineering and the financial considerations raised, there would be an assurance of the safeguarding of public expenditure in the best interests of both . the requisitioning locality and the whole country.- A

local body unable to present a scheme commending itself to such a competent board would be rightly prevented from putting it before its ratepayers. There seems to be no good reason why the schemes of the departments themselves should not be reviewed by the same advisory authority. Before any vote is approved by Cabinet and presented in Parliament this expert advice—wider in its outlook and not less technical than that now given by the departmental heads—should be sought. Review by this board of reference of all such expenditure, national as well as local, would ensure actually complete co-ordination, and that is very desirable.