FUNDS WASTED

Hokitika Guardian, 10 December 1932, Page 6

FUNDS WASTED

UNEMPLOYMENT EXPENDITURE

AUCKLAND, December 7

An example of wasteful unemployment expenditure is disclosed in the case of the Otahuhu High School playground improvements, which so far have cost nearly £3OOO to construct. It is estimated that another £2OOO will be required from the Unemployment Board’s funds to the work, making a total of £SOOO, yet local contractors state that they would have been pleased -to do the job for only £SOO.

Lack of tools and equipment, and insufficient supervision are blamed for the expense of the work carried out, whereas a private contractor would have completed the job in a few months with the use of a few men and a couple of • ploughs aiiid horse-drawn scoops. The School Committee had to make use of between 2-5 and 30 men for ten months and 50 men for five monf I ’s, using picks and shovels and wheelbarrows, which bad to lie moved 150 yards to- he tipped. Mr C. R. Petrie, ehairniniwof«£b«.: school committee, who was r ppro-u-hed agreed that from a rational point of view the new fjteyercw.ds? ‘a monument of pvt ravaganre.” He emphatically refuted the suggestion that the school committee was in anv way to blame. “When the wort- started we had no money and we still have n M money,” lie said. “The entire cost of the wo’k has been financed h v the Unemployment Board 'o D’o interests of the nnemp'oved. We d'd not even have anv money to v av the warn-s of a ne-m-nent supervisor, linvino to jn n Vo selections from t-ho rallies of the unemployed themselves.”