ACUTE PRESSURE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20007, 4 August 1939, Page 9

ACUTE PRESSURE

HIGHWAYS BOARD FUNDS HEAVY LOAN CHARGES 4 CHROMIUM-PLATED ROADS’ MR. JULL’S CRITICISM (Parliamentnry Itcporler.) WELLINGTON, this day. “The position of the main highways fund is becoming very alarming,” staled Mr. A. E. Jull (Nat., Waipawa), a former member of the Highways Board, when he. spoke in the House of Representatives yesterday.' " This, he explained, was due to the increasing interest and redemption charges loaded upon its finances. Perhaps, most people were not aware, said Mr. Jull, that only 6d a gallon of the petrol tax went to the Highways Board, which had been obliged to borrow extensively so that this year its loans totalled £7,677,000. It was proposed to spend this year £5,276,000 on highways which meant, he believed, another loan for £500,000. Interest and redemption payments amounted to 7 per cent so that £700,000 of the board’s revenue was required to pay for loans.

He enumerated other liabilities, including subsidies payable by the board which brought -its expenditure on matters, apart from construction of maintenance, up to £1,032,000 annually. The position, declared Mr. Jull," was becoming-acute. The board will be asking for more revenue.

“Those people who have been applauding the wonderful road construction programme of the Minister of Public Works* had better wake up lo the fact that they will pay very dearly for what I call extravagant chromium-plated roads which arc being built to the neglect of many thousands of miles of more important highways. There are 30,000 miles of roads in the country which havenot received a penny from the main highway funds.”