OPUNAKE HARBOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1929, Page 20

OPUNAKE HARBOUR.

To the Editor.) Sir,—This morning’s issue of your paper contains an advertisement of the Opunake Harbour Board’s intention to apply to the Loans Board for its sanction* to the board’s scheme for hanging another mill-stone round the necks of the ratepayers. It is obvious that the board’s handling of its £20,000 loan scheme stamps it as incompetent to deal faithfully with the ratepayers’ interests for five minutes’ longer. Six months ago Mr. Hughson was stressing the urgency of completing the harbour without delay. Parliamentary sanction to the loan proposal was granted seven weeks ago. The board was then free to proceed with its application to the Loans Board. The Loans Board met last week, and there is no reason in the world, except the bungling of the board, why the Opunake harbour loan could not have been dealt with then. One would think that a board with any semblance of businesslike methods in the conduct of its affairs’ would have had its case for the Loans Board prepared in advance, so that their application could have been proceeded with immediately upon Parliamentary sanction being obtained. They had ample time to ha-' i prepared their application, and the matter was urgent. But the board dallied and dawdled over the business, so that five weeks after the passing of the first stage they were only beginning to think about the second! At their meeting on December 6 they decided “that Mr. Fouhy be instructed to write to the Loans Board and open negotiations previous to the application for'the loan: being made with the object of finding the nature of the evidence, etc., which will be required in. connection with the loan.” Do the annals of local body procedure in New Zealand contain a more complete instance of bumbles blundering blindly on and proving by their handling of small things their unfitness to be entrusted with more important matters? Is a board which in the face of its own pleas as to the extreme urgency of the business decides five weeks after stage No. l.is passed to make inquiries which it should have made five months before, and which in addition finds it necessary to employ legal assistance to make this simple inquiry, fit to be entrusted with the spending of £20,000, or, for that matter, 20,000 pence? The board has a full-time secretary-harbour-master. The port is closed, so presumably his duties as harbourmaster are nil. The secretarial work, moreover, cannot be heavy. Surely, the secretary would be .glad of something to break the monotony,. A simple inquiry has to be addressed to a Government board, and civil servants are waiting to give all the information required. But for the carry-ing-out of this simple piece of secretarial work the board - decides to employ a solicitor. Most definitely and emphatically the work for which the board decided to employ Mr. Fouhy is not legal work. It is secretarial work, pure and simple. ’ I object, and I hope every ratepayer will object, to the board wasting money in this manner when it is already paying a man who should be quit competent to carry out secretarial work of the most elementary kind. But this instance of gross wastefulness is only typical of the board’s methods. The board is hopelessly unfinancial. The report of the August meeting disclosed that on July 2G last there was a debit balance, of £1685 in the general fund account. At the same meeting the expenditure of £5O on the plant and machinery was authorised. The report of last meeting discloses that from . November 22 to December 6 £72 was spent on work which, so far as published reports show, was never authorised by the board. In addition the board has authorised the expenditure of £126 on the harbourmaster’s residence—an item of purely capital expenditure. Moreover, the report states that “two additional men would be procured at an early date, men would be procured at an early date.” Also,.Mr. Vickerman is to be instructed to survey the stone—doubtless at considerable cost to the ratepayers—although three months or so ago the board pooh-poohed the idea that such a survey was necessary. , Meantime .the few shillings of revenue that the port was earning from the occasional ton or two of cargo landed by the Arapawa have ceased to flow into the empty coffers of the board since the Arapawa bumped on the bottom, and the port was closed. Surely there must be a wizard of finance somewhere behind the scenes when a board so hopelessly insolvent on the face of things can lightly proceed to spend money at the rate disclosed. The board professes to desire to reduce the rates. They hold out hopes of a 10 per cent, reduction if only the ratepayers by spending £20,000 will risk a 40 per cent, increase. It is clear, however, that a reduction of 10 per cent., or even, perhaps, 20 • per cent., is possible now, or as soon as the present board can be displaced. If Mr. Hughson desires to reduce the rates he can do so now. That he docs not take the necessary steps proves that he does not want to reduce the rates, but only to spend more money on the useless farce of a harbour that he is mainly responsible for foisting on to the people The board is apparently now levying about 10 per cent, more than is necessary to pay interest and sinking fund on the existing debt. As the income from reserves is more than sufficient to pay the cost of running the board once the port is definitely scrapped, and as there is a considerable amount of plant and material which could be saved from the wreck and sold to reduce the board’s liabilities, the possibility of rate reduction exists to-day, and the board is the sole obstacle to a reduction. Moreover, the longer an honest facing of the facts is delayed the less will it be possible to save from the wreck. Further, a continuance of the present policy of recklessness can only result in increasing the deficiency in the general account, and so postponing still further the day when the rate can be reduced. Surely the time has come for the board members, individually and collectively, to treat the position a little more seriously. Do they propose to go. before the Loans I jard ’with a scheme so manifestly incomplete as that they have so far placed before the ratepayers? Can any member of the board seriously believe that the prospects of the port warrant the sinking of another £20,000 in the sea when the uselessness of the project has been so amply demonstrated? Opitnake harbour district has already spent, in proportion to its valuation,* far more on harbour works than any her district in New Zealand. Taking New Zealand as a whole, out of every £6O of capital value £1 of loan money has been spent on harbours. Opunake’s proportion is, roughly, £1 out of every £l9—more than three time*

the average. .The proposed £20,000 loan itou- represents’approxii tt’y an additional £1 out of every £5O of capital value. In other words, the new loan itself represents a higher rate of expendit.. in t .. . to ie valuation of

the district than the whole of the loan money so far spent in New Zealahd on harbour works. If the a Mitional £20,000 is spent, our rate of expenditure will then exceed four t .'cs the average for New Zealand, and the expenditure will at best have given us a port which is useless as a port of export, and so far as ' iports are concerned, of use only for coastal trade and small vessels. Yet we are asked to incur this expenditure on the strength of a half-complete scheme, and so far any tendency on the part of ratepayers to manifest a live interest in the matter has been resented as impertinence by the board, who should be acting as trustees for the ratepayers in this matter. To-day’s advertisement mentions as one of the purposes of the proposed loan, in addition to completing the mole, “effecting certain improvements to the wharf, harbour and machinery.” Objectors to the proposed programme are invited to lodge written objections. But how can ratepayers know whether or not they object to something that has never been explained ? What, precisely, are the “certain improvements to the wharf, harbour and machinery” that are now mysteriously added to the programme? .We were told originally that “more shelter” was the main requirement, and that it could be provided for £20,000. It has never been shown that “certain improvements to the wharf” can also be done out of the £20,000. Indeed, Mr. Hardy, in a recent reply to Mr. Edmond’s query as to the adequacy of the wharf and plant for the handling of the anticipated trade, declared that the wharf was entirely adequate (Mr. Hardy ; bably forget that his original report, but of which the loan proposal developed, forecasted extensive additions to the wharf after £20,000 had been spent on the mole, but let. that pass). If, then, the wharf is entirely , adequate, what are the “certain improvements” proposed? Will some board member please explain ? If they are necessary works then Mr. Hardy was wrong when he decla: ' the wharf to be adequate? If they are unnecessary works, the- the board should be given no loophole for carrying them c en assuming they can complete the .ole for less than £20,000, and have a surplus left. Again, if they are necessary works, and if the mole is to cost £20,000, as We have all along been told, then the board should have asked for more than £20,000, and whatever the position, they should have and should disclose to the ratepayers a detailed programme of works and detailed estimates for each item.

A further point is that the board’s ad-, vertisement makes no mention of the propcsal to pay ’ie first year’s interest and sinking fund out of the £20,000, though this was originally part of the proposal. Is it r.t the boardfs duty to make this clear when inviting objections to the scheme?

The time is ripe, for :i little more frankness on the part of board members, and particularly the chairman. Despite the fact that Mr. Hughson has studiously ignored the very pertinent questions I addressed to him through your columns four months ago, nevertheless, as he has since experienced a “change of heart,” and at a recent meeting held that the board “should take the public fully into its confidence,” I propose to ‘address certain questions to Mr. Hughson through yoitr columns. If Mr. Hughson is unable to reply, perhaps Mr. Tosland will oblige: The questions are: — 1. Has the board at any of its meetings since the new loan was mooted gone carefully into the question of a possible increase in costs of administration and maintenance in the event of the port being compl ' *d ?

2. If not, why nbt? 3. If so, did they endorse Mr. Hughson’s 1926 estimate, which gave the annual working costs as £2500? 4. If the working costs are to be £2500 and the gross revenue £2500, how is the interest on the £20,000 to be paid, and how is the present rate to be reduced ?

5. In view of the fact that on July 26 last there was a deficiency of £1685 in the general account, how does the board propose to pay for the extension to the harbourmaster’s house? Does it propose to increase this deficiency ? 6. Will this deficiency have to be paid off out of the future revenue of the port ? 7. If so, how is the trade going to yield a surplus for the reduction of the present rate immediately on completion of the scheme, seeing that the deficiency is enough to absorb the estimated surplus for rate reduction for four years? 8. Does Mr. Hughson consider it fair to the ratepayers to spend their money on employing a solicitor to do secretarial work when the secretary is virtually idle ?

9. Does he consider it playing the game with the ratepayers to incur capital liability on buildings when the port is likely to be closed finally, if the Loans Board rejects his scheme? 10. Seeing that the board has now decided to survey the stone, why did the board shirk this question when \it was first raised some months ago? 11. Is it a fact that the board, so fai* as its case for the Loans Board is concerned, has abandoned the pretence that the net revenue will be sufficient to permit of a reduction of the present rate? 12. Will he tell us definitely what works of urgent necessity are covered by the phrase “certain improvements to the wharf” in the advertisement appearing over his name in to-day’s Daily News ? Thanking you, sir, for space. —I am, W. A. SHEAT. Pihama, December 20, 1929. gwwigTHMafcgmaHt »a rAYttri. cni .I mifci lUM^gMaaw—w— 1 |M 11 w l||Wl 11 '