LOST THEIR SEATS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4188, 24 May 1939, Page 8

LOST THEIR SEATS

TWO TOWN BOARD MEMBERS. ADMINISTRATIVE IRREGULARITY. The burgesses of Kawhia will have learned with some disquietude of the compulsory withdrawal from the administrative table of two town commissioners. Such withdrawal will, of course, necessitate an election of two others to fill their places, but in the interim the uncertainty of the result of such election must inimically affect the immediate future functioning of the controlling Board, there being no qualified executive officer appointed to control the work now in hand and upon which a number of workmen are employed. This is not to suggest that the men so employed are untrustworthy and likely to take absence of supervision as an opportunity—to use a “ classical” expression—to “scrounge”; but it does mean that a body of men engaged on any undertaking move more unitedly and confidently when its movements are directed by a recognised qualified head. Such correlated activity is more calculated tp ensure satisfactory results from public expenditure than may be reasonably expected when the expenditure is undirected or loosely controlled. Apart from this, as a specific instance of the setback occasioned under the recently-referred-to developments ■will also cause hesitancy in regard to the transaction of the general business of the Board. This is detrimental to the best interests of the town, and wisdom dictates the necessity of providing against similar happenings in the future, ’whilst from the local viewpoint the position is disturbing, also must be recognised the far and deep influence which absence of a check on irregularities must exercise.

It is, or should bo, accepted by all aspirants to public office that the fact of being elected to administer does not carry with it the pre-emptive right to hold remunerated executive positions under the controlling body of which they are members. The necessity of such acceptance is of course evident to all who are concerned for the establishment of wholesome civic control, and not only civic but road district, county, and all other forms and varieties of control responsible for the expenditure of public funds.

The fact that town commissioners engaged themselves in taking leading parts in the executive work associated with a scheme for which they were, in part, instrumental in formulating, immediately placed them within the range of criticism and created a feeling among their electors which had symptoms analogous to those associated with non-confidence, and even assuming—and such assumption is imperative when all the circumstances are weighed—that they felt legally justified in carrying executive responsibility in addition to that devolving upon them as town commissioners, they placed themselves, inadvertently, close to that arena which, in at least one country outside of New Zealand, is reserved for the display of methods of Tammanyism and the subtleties of “graft.”

But though an irregularity has existed in respect to Kawhia town control over a lengthy period, the more disturbing feature centres round the fact of its having been permitted to exist, and becomes more than surprising when it is learned that not only was.it so permitted,, but that it also received departmental sanction, departmental approval, and increased funds.

Such procedure is inexplicable, and it is impossible to determine how or why, in view of such departmental approval, sanction, and confidence as shown by increase of grants—that the Board can be accused of irregularity at all, and forced into an untimely election; and, further, if the matter were trenchantly pursued, the central authority would contend that such action was essential to maintain above-board administration and judicious expenditure of public money, which of course is possibly so, but if maladministration has been permitted to obtain in Kawhia over a period of eight, ten, or twelve months, or whatever the period may have been, can it be asserted with confidence that similar irregularity has not obtained m some other parts of New Zealand over periods that may be reckoned in years, especially when it is apparently possible to find a breach in the regulations sufficiently large for maladministration to creep in, and if, as it seems, then possible to close it against the light of inquiry for months ? Long association with public expenditure methods would give rise to an unhesitant No I