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C.O.882/12
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carried out by the Public Works Department at the expense of the Improvement and Development Fund.
We have carefully inspected the Mare-aux-Vacoas organization, and with one exception we do not consider that the staff employed is excessive or unduly expensive for the work which now falls to be performed. The exception is the Store Clerk who also acts as cashier for the receipt of water-rents at the waterworks office at Rose Hill. The Director of Public Works agrees that this local store which is maintained only for the supply of spare parts for the repair of domestic water taps, etc., could be closed down without any serious inconvenience to the public. We recommend, there- fore, that the post of Store Clerk should be abolished and the work in connexion with the payment of water-rents should be taken over by the District Cashier.
12. There is another feature, however, both of this and the other water-supply systems throughout the Colony which appears to us to call for very serious consideration. We refer to the failure of the Public Works Department and of the other department equally concerned, viz., that of the Receiver-General, to enforce payment of the charges on the consumers of the water. To understand the reason of this failure it is necessary to consider the system of charges and the procedure for enforcing payment in some detail. The supply of water to consumers is made in two ways, viz., by public fountain and by private house connexion. The great majority of the consumers, consisting of Indian peasantry and labourers, are, of course, content with the fountain supply, which is everywhere accessible and abundant. For this supply a charge of water-rate of Rs.2 (Rs.2.50 for Mare-aux-Vacoas) is made upon every house occupier living within 1,500 ft. of a public fountain. A list of such persons is made out at the beginning of each year by the water-rate officers in the staff of Mare-aux-Vacoas or of the District Boards, and is sent in to the head office of the Public Works Department, whence it is passed on to the office of the Financial Assistant. The consumer meanwhile has been served with a notice of charge by the water-rate officer and is expected to pay the amount of the charge to the District Cashier. Daily statements of payments received by the Cashier are furnished by him to the Financial Assistant. The rate falls due annually on the 1st of January but the work of serving notices and of furnish- ing the Financial Branch with the lists of persons upon whom the notices have been served is spread over the six months from January to June. Within a month from the service of the last notice, i.e., about the beginning of July, the Financial Assistant's office prepare a schedule of defaulters for each Water Board area and submit these schedules to the Water Boards for permission to institute legal proceedings against the defaulters. On the Boards' permission being obtained the schedules are transmitted to the
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to the water-rate District Magistrates who issue suminouses officers by whom they are served upon the debtors. Service of the summons may take many months to make and it thus not infre- quently happens that judgment is not obtained until after the expiration of the year on commencement of which the rate fell due. With the obtaining of judgment against him the debtor has the choice of making payment or of lodging a petition to the Govern- ment for remission of the amount of the debt, and not unnaturally the latter course makes the stronger appeal. The petitions are generally received in the Colonial Secretary's office and are trans- mmitted to the Public Works Department where they are filed and A letter submitted to the Director or the Deputy Director.
is then addressed to the Poor Law Commissioner asking that enquiry may be made as to the pecuniary means of the petitioner, and for advice as to whether remission of the debt should be granted. If the Poor Law Commissioner recommends exemption the case is referred to the District Board concerned for considera- tion. The District Boards have authority at this stage of the proceedings to authorize remission, but the Mare-aux-Vacoas Board to which the largest number of cases relate has power only to recommend, and the final decision is usually a matter of submission by the Colonial Secretary to the Governor. It is not surprising that with such resources for delay available to debtors many cases are found to drag along from year to year and arrears are allowed to accumulate to amounts which are in fact beyond the debtor's ability to pay. The arrears of water-rate still uncleared amounted on 30th June, 1931, to Rs.69,367, and in some cases covered several years. Special efforts have been made by the Financial Assistant to improve this situation and we were informed that most of the outstanding arrears would be cleared off by the end of the current year. It is obvious, however, that so long as the present dilatory procedure remains the greatest improvement that can be hoped for is that the collection of water-rate should be enforced upon wilful defaulters, or remitted in the case of insolvent debtors, within a period of about 15 months from the expiration of the year in which it falls due. For reasons which, although independent of these difficulties of procedure, are strongly reinforced by them, we have advised in chapter XIV that water-rate as distinct from water-rent should be abolished, with a consequent saving in administrative costs both in the Public Works Department, the Receiver-General's Department and the staffs of the Water Boards." The saving would comprise the two water-rate officers of the Mare-aux-Vacoas Board and a number of similar officers employed by the District Boards.
The procedure in the case of water-rent, which is the charge made upon consumers with house connexions, follows generally
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