CO129-388 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1912 [1-2] — Page 82

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COPY.

Enclosure 1.

350

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The transactions of the Department of Public Works are divided in the yearly Estimates into the following heads:-

(a) Public Works Recurrent,

(b) Public Works Extraordinary.

The former has reference to the amount expended upon maintenance. The latter the amount expended upon works of varying magnitude which are specifically sanctioned as construction projects. In the case of Stores required for Annual Maintenance it is possible to fix a Standard Stock based on the experience of past years and accordingly to fix an amount at which such standard stock should stand.

In the case of the Public Works Extraordinary the quantity of Stores required varies with the requirements of the pro- -ject and the amount which the Annual Budget admits of spending thereon. It is quite impossible to lay down what the figura under this head should be as a Standard and indeed it is quite unnecessary see- -ing that under ordinary circumstances, stores indented for a special work should not, generally speaking, remain longer under a suspense head than for a period within the year for which they are required, and during which they are issued, as necessity demands, and then only debited to the work concerned. We are quite aware that the correct procedure is to pass all Stores arriving in the Colony through the Stores and not to charge them out to Works until they are actually issued item by item, if need be. To charge off Stores direct to Works without passing them through the Store Account is a harmful and irregular practice.

In determining therefore the figure at which standard stock should stand we are only required to deal with Stores required for Public Works Recurrent, and such works under Public Works Ex- penditure as are unforeseen and have to be undertaken at short notice,

such as the lt miles of pipe lines referred to by the Director of Public Works in his minute of 21.12.10, 0.3.0. 585/10.

In order to ascertain what the figures spent on stores during the past ten years for P. W. Recurrent, Mr. Wood has prepared