CO129-561-10 Estimates 1938 2-9-1937 - 23-9-1938 — Page 335

Enclosure 5.

40

Your Excellency,

There are a number of Resolutions in my name

relating to Loan Expenditure and as they are closely interconnected I propose, with your permission, to address

the Council on all of them together.

First, authority is required for variations in the expenditure under the Hong Kong Dollar Loan Ordinance. On the 26th May last this Council approved a re-allocation of the funds available under that Ordinance and the advance

from surplus balances during 1937 of certain sums to be

It now spent on the works specified in that allocation. appears that the expenditure on the Shing Mun Gorge Dam was then under-estimated and the provision then made will be substantially exceeded. The revised figures are given in Appendix VI(b) to the Draft Estimates for 1938 already laid before Council. The principal reason for the excess is that receipts from the sale of plant, which are credited to the loan funds, were originally estimated at a figure which is now unlikely to be reached. It is not yet possible to give final figures because all the plant has not yet been sold, but it is necessary to obtain authority from

the Council for the expenditure which has actually to be met this year. The total cost is now put at $8,800,000 less receipts from sale of plant $200,000, giving a net expenditure of $8,600,000. Net expenditure in 1937 is estimated at $337,769.28 on the assu ption that all the credits expected will be received in this year. There is thus an increase in the net expenditure on the Dam of

$275,000.

On the other hand there are reductions in the

estimates for certain other parts of the Shing Mun Valley Water Works and for the Stanley Gaol. These total $139,000