GOVERNMENT ROAD GRANTS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 448, 16 March 1912, Page 5

GOVERNMENT ROAD GRANTS.

KING COUNTRY RECOMMENDATIONS. THE MINISTER/S REPLY. A short time ago the combined King Country Counties formulated a series of recommendations and forwarded them to the Government with a view to expediting the obtaining :■"'! tho expending' of road grants in the various districts. The following questions were put to the Minister and the anwsers received appear after in the same parargaph : —• 1. That each County expend the whole of the votes provided on the appropriations for works in its district.—The Government is quite prepared to allow local bodies to expend votes for which provision is made by Parliament, except such as are provided for large bridges, or in some cases out of /vay back block roads, and in pursuance of this policy offer<» are made to local bodies immediately the Public Works Estimates are laid on the table of the House. It is true that the "whole" of the amounts voted were not offered to local bodies, but the department would have been quite prepared to do so had there b«en reasonable grounds for supposing that the local bodies could promptly undertake all such work. As a matter of fact a great many of the offers made were declined by the local bodies, and the work had to be undertaken by the department. 2. That the department's local engineer should pass, at the Countv'B office, all plans and specifications for carrying out such works.—lnstructions have recently been issued allowing engineers in charge of districts to approve plans and specifications for bridges where the estimated cost does not exceed £SOO, for road formation work up to £IOOO, and for metalling up to any amount. It is necessary, however, that a copy of each plan and specification passed by the Government engineer should be retained for the use of the officer who approves them, and who has to pass the work when completed. Further, he whole of the information aa to the purpose for which the vote was provided is it the engineer's office, and for these reasons it is considered advisable that the approving should be done in the Government engineer's office, and not at the county office.

3. That the department's local engineer should pass all work carried out under such plans and specifications, wh«n completed.—This is the present rule. 4. That the whole of the amount granted by Parliament for each County (or a sum sufficient to make progress payments) should be paid into a separate trust account at the bank used by the local body, as soon as possible after the appropriations have been passed, the Government engineer certifying vouchers, or, if necessary, counter signing cheques, the moneys due to be transferred directly from the trust account to the County account. —lt is regretted that it is not possible to comply with this request. The law would not admit of money being paid over to local bodies before the work was completed and passed as satisfactory. Furthermore, it is impracticable, by reason of the fact that such large sums of money would be outstanding. With a view to avoiding delay in making "progress" payments, instructions were recently issued to departmental engineers that, as a general rule, they might accept the certificate of the county chairman and county engineer for progress payments up to 75 per cent, of the grant. Before payment of the final 25 per cent, is made, however, it will be necessary to have an inspection made by a Government officer. 5. That a percentage be allowed local bodies to cover the cost of administrative expenses. —I rerget that I am unable to comply with this request. To grant it would be to treat the three local bodies at whoso instance it is made, quite exceptionally, as in no other case is any percentage allowed to cover the cost of administrative expenses. The Government is of opinion that when it makes grants of considerable sums of money to assist loral bodies in carrying out road and bridge works it is only reasonable that the small percentage required to cover the cost of expending such grants should be met by the local bodies who are so materially assisted.

R. McKENZIE, Minister of Public Works,