Profit of £986

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 582, 7 February 1929, Page 6

Profit of £986

Nine months of city

TRANSPORT RATEPAYERS PAID NOTHING

For the nine months ended on December 31 last the Auckland trams and buses made a profit of £986. In the last financial year on the same basis the loss was £40,178. A STATEMENT supplied to the Transport Board last evening showed that the loan issue at April 1, 1928, was £1,825,000 and at December 31 it was £1,853,000. The sinking funds had increased from £368,256 in April by £48,788 to £417,044. For the nine months ended in September the total receipts were £547,393. On the other side of the statement appeared £416,174 for payments on revenue account, while other amounts brought the contra up to £546,407, the amounts including £71,850 for interest, £28,588 sinking fund, £14,875 for bus depreciation and £5,538 as the fourth instalment liquidating the loss of realisation of the power-house. The power-house loss will be written off by March 31, 1931. Capital expenditure for the nine months totalled £11,389, of which Halsey Street extension, costing £9,575, was the largest. "I would like to point out that the original city loan of one and a-quarter millions to buy the undertaking will be wiped out by the sinking funds in 1940,” remarked the chairman, Mr. J. A. C. Allum. “Apart from that the undertaking Has always paid a dividend—in other words, it has always paid its interest to the bond-holders, and has never cost the city ratepayers a penny. “One hears enough about what the tramways have cost the ratepayers, but as I say, the ratepayers have never been asked to pay a penny in rates. We have accumulated losses, but we have reserves, and the interest has been paid.” Tli* statement was received without discussion.