Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS, GISBORNE THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1883.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1334, 26 July 1883, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS, GISBORNE THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1883.

At tbs last general meeting i>£ the Borough Council, Councillor Smith, as Chairman of the Public Works Committee, said that he should not be doing his duty did he not call the attention of the Council to sundry matters in connection with the fire engine shed contract. In the first place he wished the Council to consider the extra item of £l5 3s, Certain alterations had been suggested to him, such as using hard wood in the place of soft wood, and bricks in the place of wood for the well, which he had thought very advisable, providing they had been accomplished at a cost of what ho had understood would be sufficient to effect the same—viz., £6 or £7. But when the work had been done he found the serious item of £l5 3s. charged for what he had understood would, only cost £6 or £7. Now, if Cr. Smith only authorised the expenditure of some £6 or £7, then wo say distinctly that the Council ought to have persistently set its face against paying any more. In fact, as a matter of right Cr. Smith had no business to give his sanction to any outlay whatever over and above the contract price. Should any such necessity arise, the case should be laid before the Council for its approval or rejection, and in no wise ought the Council to permit the outlay even of £0 or £7 by any Councillor, except by its own vote and sanction. That this evil, once permitted, may lead to serious results, is amply demonstrated by the present deplorable extravagance at the fire engine shed. As to who is to blame for the scandalous blunders made in connection with the construction of the well, &e., we will not at present discuss until certain explanations have been made ; but will content ourselves with saying that a more disgraceful waste of ratepayers money has never occurred. The contract price was for the construction of tne shed and well, with pipes extending through the bank out on to , the mud. Now’, in the event of this work being properly done, all that was required to finally complete the job was the continuing of the pipes some 25 to 30 feet, so as to reach the point of water at very lowest tides. The cost of properly directed labour to effect this most assuredly should

not have exceeded £lO at the very outside. But what amounts have already been squandered—nay absolutely thrown away on this simple work. First, there is the large extra item of £l5 3s. Then there is £2 10s for facines, which never have been, and never will be required. As to the amount of cost in labour, only a small portion seems to have been yet paid, but that small portion amounts to about £lO or more. In round numbers, a simple work which would not have cost any private firm or individual at the most £lO, will, before it is satisfactorily completed, cost the ratepayers some £5O or more. Is not this most disgraceful ? We look for plain and clear answers to the grave charges made, and we ask Councillor Smith, for his sake, to thoroughly explain this wretched bungling on the part of some one. Pending this explanation we must, in the meantime, ask the Chairman to furnish the public with the whole cost of this work, and in the public interest we also ask that no outlay whatever should be incurred without the vote of the Council. Had this been done in the present instance it would have prevented, to some extent, the scandalous waste of public money.