ELECTRIC POWER BOARDS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16214, 27 August 1923, Page 7

ELECTRIC POWER BOARDS.

AN AMENDING MEASURE. | {Parliamentary Reporter.l WELLINGTON, this day. , Tho principal feature of the amendment of tho Electric Power Boards Act, which the Minister of Works has introduced, is a clause, to deal with the difficulty of rating areas which cannot at the moment receive the benefit of the hoard’s operations. Consequently, the boards arc to bo empowered to make separate rates within defined portions of their area within the limits of a maximum of £3O per annum and a minimum of £l. A portion of this clause further provides that unless a supply of electricity is available at the boundary of a property, or at a point within ten chains of such boundary, either from tho board’s main or from the mains of a licensee supplied by the board 1 , tho board shall pot be entitled under this section to collect any rate in respect of that property. Every person liable to pay a rate under this section shall be entitled to receive free of charge for use on the property in respect of which the rate is levied, a supply of electrical energy equivalent in value to the total amount of such rate at a scale of charges from time to time fixed by the board or licensee, as the case may be. Boards are to bo given power to expend, under! the heading of “Unauthorised,” an amount not exceeding 1 per cent, of their gross receipts for the year, exclusive of loan moneys. Their powers of boiTowing by bank overdraft to meet initial losses have been extended, a sliding scale being provided which enables up to 7 per cent, of the aggregate capital expenditure to be borrowed at the end of the fourth year, but in the eighth year, after the board has commenced to supply electrical energy, its overdraft must not exceed _ the limits prescribed in the Local Bodies’ Finance Act. There are other useful machinery clauses, including one which will emjknver boards to plant trees to meet their future timber requirements.