ELECTRICITY CHARGES HAVE REMAINED SAME OVER LONG PERIOD

Wanganui Chronicle, 18 May 1950, Page 8

ELECTRICITY CHARGES HAVE REMAINED SAME OVER LONG PERIOD

The board’s charges for electricity to the public have remained the same over a long period in a time when costs all round have risen, stated the chairman (Mr. F. Purnell) to Monday’s meeting of the Wanganui-Ran-gitikei Electric-Power Board in his annual report. “When costs of rival commodities and in some cases of electricity itself have been increased, the maintenance of the low rates in this district is a cause for satisfaction,” said Mr. Purnell. “Some form of tariff revision will be necessary in the not distant future. On the one hand, increasing adaptability of electricity for a multiplicity of services makes the simplest possible tariff the most desirable, and the cost of metering equipment now provides another argument for simplification. The higher cost, of bulk power will require additional income, and whether this is to be earned wholly by new business or partly by a reconstruction in tariff, will have to be considered by th.e board at a later date.”

“The year just ended is the first full one in which the increased departmental charges have operated That further increases in power costs are inevitable in view of the high cost, of Iho new generating stations is apparent to all, and the general manager of the 1 Apartment. has freely stated that when the present contracts with the boards expire in 1953 there must be a revision upwards in the costs. The extent of the expected increase is at. present a matter for conjecture, but the board must ever have in mind the fact that the additional expense is certain