PUBLIC WORKS AND RETRENCHMENT
STATEMENT BY MR COATES. (Pn Dnitid Pnw AtaoounMJ CHRISTCHURCH, August 3. Everybody has been pressing for retrenchment and so forth, and the Public’ Works Department has-, been able to do quite a lot with its reduced staff, said the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. J. G. Coates) to a deputation that waited on him this morning. “I think,” ho continued, “that the department has 88 fewer officers than last year. I am talking about the staff employed by the department, not including the men who have contracts. That depletion makes a fcdg difference. You can go on cutting down and cutting down until you almost stagger under the load, but the officers are' doing their level best to meet all demands that come along. I say advisedly they are doing their very host, and I am afraid some of the heads of some brandies are doing 16 hours a day instead of eight. We will have to increase a few of the staffs. There is no doubt about it. I explained recently that we were a little bit behind over the Mangahao specifications, and we want to get ahead with them. I have managed partly to arrange for the deagningofficar to get on with Lake Coleridge. The specifications, I think, are printed! for one job, but owing to unemployment and tno desire of many men to take up contracts of their own, it lias been decided to have an alternative contract, in three sections, for the far end, middle and bottom. I think these specifications will be printed this week. As soon as they are printed I shall ask Cabinet to give me authority to call for tenders for the work. That may take place during the next week or so. The basis I am working on is that I. must not exceed ■ a million a year,” continued the Minister. “We have it all spaced out. I know exactly where I am about hydroelectrical development for the next seven or eight years yet (he went on laughingly). I don’t know whether it is best to make it public, because it is a case of squeeze, squeeze, squeezed’
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 18624, 4 August 1922, Page 4
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362PUBLIC WORKS AND RETRENCHMENT Otago Daily Times, Issue 18624, 4 August 1922, Page 4
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