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The membership of the Select Committees is changed from time to time, in order to allow members to acquire as wide a detailed knowl- edge of the Authority's activities as is practicable.
ADMINISTRATION
The routine administration and execution of the decisions of the Authority are carried out by the Housing Division of the Urban Services Department, operating under the control of the Commissioner for Housing. The Commissioner functions as the Authority's principal executive officer. The salaries of all the staff, who, though civil servants, are regarded as on secondment, are reimbursed to Government by the Authority, plus a 30% surcharge to cover the cost of pensions, quarters, passages, office accommodation, printing, and other overheads. The full organization of the Division will eventually include sections to deal with administration, accounts, estate management, statistics, and archi- tectural planning-so far all except the last two mentioned have been set up.
The establishment of the Housing Division is shown in Appendix III. The most important staff changes that have occurred during the period under review (in chronological order) are as follows:
(i) On 11th August, 1955, when Mr. J. P. Aserappa, the former Assistant Director (Housing) was transferred to the Colonial Secretariat, his duties were assumed by Mr. W. E. Collard, who on 3rd July, 1956, was appointed Secretary to the Authority. (ii) On 13th April, 1956, Miss E. Bedwell, F.S.H.M., formerly at Southend-on-Sea, Essex, who had been appointed as Housing Manager, arrived in the Colony to take up her duties.
(iii) On 20th March, 1957, Mr. G. T. Rowe, Cadet Officer, was appointed as Commissioner for Housing, and took charge of the Housing Division.
Considerable difficulty and delay is often experienced over the re- cruitment of staff, especially expatriates, owing to the need to comply with normal Government recruitment procedures, but this cannot be avoided as long as the staff are civil servants. It is financially beneficial to the Authority to retain this arrangement.
FINANCES
The Authority's projects are financed by means of loans (to be amortized over forty years) from the Colony's Development Fund, made
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