CITY’S FINANCES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 768, 14 September 1929, Page 6

CITY’S FINANCES

INCREASE IN TEMPORARY LOAN INDEBTEDNESS COUNCIL POLICY CRITICISED Stating that the City Council’s temporary loan indebtedness has increased greatly during the last four years, through it policy of borrowing over the counter, Mr. J. R. Lundon, a member of the council, writes to The Sun criticising' “a condition of''affairs with which he cannot agree.” He saysSir,—• The excessive expansion, during Mr. Baildon’s four and one-third years of Mayoral ascendancy, of the city’s temporary loans device of raising "on demand” borrowings from undisclosed lenders at 4 per cent, per annum, and spending the same in anticipation of receipt of laggard rate payments and of other ordinary items of general revenue, is profoundly amazing. Tho figures, to which I now publicly direct attention, demands consideration by our debt and rate-ridden civic constituency. At last Thursday’s council convocation, I submitted for the information of new members, Press and public, authenticated official records disclosing in understandable form the plain truth—not one word of which, as uttered by. me, found a place in yesterday's Sun report, which consisted chiefly of titbits of querulous invective hurled at my • devoted head (when 1 had no right or chance of reply) by three of the most persistent apologists for the council’s cabinet. I was not elected to the City Council to join the cloistered choir. Paeons of praise and hymns of hate stir me not. “What is truth?” asked Jesting Pilate, who would not wait for an answer. I am no Jesting Pilate, and I await an authoritative answer to the figures quoted by me for winch I now ask publication in The Sun. Temporary Loans repayable "on demand,” with interest at the rate of 4 per cent, per annum:— Aggregate amounts received at the Town Hall treasury in Sir James Gunson’s last four years of mayoral control: —1921-2 £61,000; 1922-3, £10,000; 1923-4. £68,350; 1924-5, £105,950; total aggregate for four years, £245,300, or an averaging aggregate a year of £61,325. Mr. Baildon’s four years’ regime to March 31, 1929:—1925-6, £203,050; 1926-7, £265,725; 1927-8, £465,626; 1928-9, £447,l29—showing a total aggregate of £1,384,530, or an averaging aggregate per annum of £346,132 10s, as compared with the Gunson average of £61,325. To M.r. Baildon’s four completed years of aggregates, viz., £1,384,530, add the total aggregate of temporary loans received at the Town Hall from April 1 to August 7, 1929, viz., £208,575 (which is £5,525 in excess of the amount received during the whole 12 months of 1925-6), and Mr. Baildon’s grand total for the four and a-quarter years (approximately) of his governance reaches the colossal' aggregate of £1,593,105, or an averaging aggregate per annum over his whole term of approximately £367.640, and an averaging aggregate per annum over the last two and a-quarter years of (approximately) £481,850, as compared with Sir James Gunson’s aforesaid average aggregate of £61,325!

I make this public statement that on the 2Sth ult. the city’s net actual unpaid indebtedness on these temporary loans for the current year stood at £127,275 —a1l of which was presumably paid into the district fund account, which on that date had a total cash credit balance of £B,IBB 3s 9d with which to meet that £127,275 of "on demand” temporary indebtedness, plus interest at 4 per cent, per annum, if demand had been made on that date. Of course, the unpaid general rates, when paid, and the ordinary revenue as and when received, will probably be utilisable toward repayment of these temporary loans, but the swollen and still-swelling aggregates as above indicaJed emphasise a condition of affairs with which I, as a councillor, profoundly disagree. J. R. LUXDOX. September 14, 1929.