CO537-1651 — Page 126

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I propose to give instructions that this preparatory work should be

commenced.

34. In my broadcast statement I proposed that certain revenues should

from the outset be handed over to the Municipal Council and that further

transfers of revenues or grants in aid would be contingent on the assumption

by the Council of transferred services. I indicated that the Municipality

would be the rating authority and would also be responsible for the

collection of certain taxes, and that the aim would be to ensure that the

Council was supplied with funds adequate for its requirements and, subject to

audit and to the requisite assent of the Legislature in the case of new

taxation, to give the Council the fullest possible control over Municipal

finance. There is no doubt that the public would feel that the shadow and

not the substance had been given if the Municipality were not given a wide

control over Municipal finance.

It will naturally fall within the purview

of the Commission to which I have referred in paragraph 33 to deal with the

question of providing adequate finances for the Municipality pari passu with

the transfer of responsibilities.

In order that there may be no unnecessary duplication of accounting

staffs I should propose to ask the Commission to consider whether during

the transitional stage a system could be evolved under which the machinery of

collection by sub-accountants and by the Treasury could continue as heretofore,

the product of the various sources of revenue assigned to the Municipal

Council being credited to a Municipal Fund in the Colonial Treasury, wherefrom

disbursements would be made by the order of the Council. In some cases,.

such as the licensing of vehicles, the transfer of the collection of revenue

would be simultaneous with the transfer of the responsibility undertaken,

but it would probably be a convenience and saving of expense to the Council

if the actual receipts could continue for the time being to be paid into the

Colonial Treasury.

The same considerations would apply to the actual collection of

rates. Subject to the enactment of the necessary legislation, the

Assessor's Department could readily be transferred to the Municipality but