A BIG DEAL

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1929, Page 6

A BIG DEAL

AVAIPORI ELECTRIC WORKS. DUNEDIN, February 7. At the meeting <>i the City Council last night the Electric Power and Lighting Committee was authorised to proceed with negotiations arising out of an oiler which the Government has made to acquire hy purchase lhc headworks of the AVaipori hydro-electric power scheme. The AVaipori undertaking, which is perhaps the best profitearner among the City Corporation’s trading departments, has been an outstanding factor in the industrial progress of the city and surrounding districts, and the proposed trans'ler of the enterprise to Government control is therefore a matter of great importance to the whole ol the reticulated area. .As negotiations are at present in progress it is not possible to give any details of the proposed sale. It is stated, however, that one ol the («o\ernment’s alternative oilers to buy the AVaipori headworks lor a figure equal to what the City Corporation has expended on them, and sell the power in bulk to the City Corporation at the same price as it is calculated it would have cost the Corporation to develop that power itself. Thus a change o'l ownership should lint mean that consumers would have to pay the standard Government, rates, which are much higher than those current in Dunedin. Whether the Government will complete the proposed new dam to its full height, or supply from AVaitaki the additional power the dam was designed to make available, cannot definitely he stated, hut the economic aspect suggests plainly enough what course would be taken. In round figures the AA’aipori headworks have cost the Corporation about half a million sterling and there is a projected expenditure of another quarter of a million, so that a big deal is involved. Jt is the Government’s policy to control the headworks of the hydro-electric systems of the Dominion. Though, unlike Monowai, there exists.no legis ativo authority hy which the Govern ,uont could acquire AVaipori compulsorily, with such control the linking np <>' the different systems in each island would he proceeded with, and the advantages of this arc too obvious to be further stressed.