Sessional_Paper_1912 — Page 71

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HONGKONG.

No. 13

1912

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED TO ENQUIRE INTO THE EXPENDITURE AND DELAY IN CONSTRUCTING THE POST OFFICE BUILDINGS.

Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor, October 3rd, 1912,

1. The Committee appointed to enquire into the causes which have led (1) to an expen- diture on the new l'ost Office in excess of what was anticipated and (2) to delay in their completion, and (3) whether both results were unavoidable, or (4) were due to the methods employed in carrying out the work, have the honour to report as follows :—

2. The cost of building the Post Office, as originally designed, was estimated, in the first instance, at $525,000. This amount was increased to $603,750, in consequence of Government deciding in July 1903 to add another storey to the building. The first esti nate did not include the cost of the foundations. These a contractor, in November 1903, under- took to lay for $134,000, but as the work proceeded it was found necessary to put in piles of greater length than had been contracted for, and to lay down a concrete and asphalt basement, whereby the estimate for the foundations was raised to $168,000. Not until January 1906 was the work of laying the foundations complete. Meantime, Government had decided that all the mouldings to the level of the top parapet should be of granite, and had authorised the Architects to use steel instead of wood where it was considered to be advantageous, and otherwise to allow for wood of the best kind. Accordingly the Archi- tects prepared a revised and more detailed estimate, based upon these modifications of the original proposals, and including the cost of heating, lighting, an various other necessary fittings. These modifications account for the estimate of the cost of the superstructure being increased by $44,200 to $647,950, and the total cost, inclusive of the foun iations, to $855,100. That was in May 1905, nearly two years after the original plans hal been accepted. Tenders for the superstructure were then called for. The lowest receiv 1, and the one accepted, was $13,900 in excess of the revised estimate. Two suggestions have been made to account for this increase. The first was that contractors almost invariably tender higher for Government work than for work to be executed by private architects. The second was that the building trade was then active wages were high: materials were dear:

: consequently contractors fearing a continuance, or even an intensification of the situa- tion thus created, did not deem it advisable to calculate as closely as the architects ha I done.

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3. By this increase the total estimated cost was raised to $372,000. Subsequently a decision to erect a clock tower on the building brought the figure up to $929,250. This sum is short of the actual expenditure, up to date, by $110,750, that is to say, the building, still unfinished (inasmuch as the clock tower remains to be erecte 1) has cost $1,040,000.

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4. The largest item in this further increase of $110,750, is $51,195. It is state by the Director of Public Works to be due to the inadequacy of the quantities in the Bill of Quantities" furnished by the Architects. When asked for an explanation Mr. Rum stated that it was the first he had heard of it, and that in the absence of particulars he could not say whether his Bill of Quantities was inadequate or not. To some extent it was pre-