LOCAL BODIES’ DEBTS

Taranaki Daily News, 8 August 1930, Page 4

LOCAL BODIES’ DEBTS

COMPILATION OF STATISTICS. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE VIEWS. The growing indebtedness of loca> authorities was the. subject of a letter received from the Auckland Chamber of Commerce by the Taranaki Chamber at its meeting in New Plymouth kmt night. The Auckland Chamber stated, that it proposed ventilating the matter in the form of a remit before the Associated Chambers of Commerce conference at Mt. Cook, opening on October The salient facts were as follows; •— The gross indebtedness of local governing bodies in New Zealand had not far short of trebled during the past decade, having been £28,000,000 at March 31, 1919, and being £68,000,000 now. Per capita the figures had risen from £24 to* £46, while annual loan charges had risen from 26s to 59s per capita. Taxation by local authorities has risen from 3.1 millions to 6.1 annually, or from -54 s to 85e per head of population. Accrued sinking funds on account of local bodies’. debentures and stock on March 31, 1928, were £7,000,000; the gross indebtedness being 59 millions. On State advances loans one million out of 6 1-3 millions originally borrowed had been repaid in regular instalment/?. Relatively little of that expenditure was on definitely productive works, and some of the “productive” works were not fully productive, notably some of the harbour works. The non-productive character of that loan expenditure was indicated by the great increase in per capita taxation already quoted. The asset/? of the local authorities were estimated by the local authorities to be of aggregate value approximately equal to the gross debt. Iu fact, however. the assets included, inter alia, such itjnifi as reserves, parkt? and gardens which were not really productive in a direct manner at all.