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Following is the transcript (English part ) of a media session given by the Financial Secretary, Mr Antony Leung, at Murray Building today (June 26) :-

Question : (about whether the Financial Secretary's role was being diminished under the Accountability System and the pay adjustments of statutory bodies)

Financial Secretary : I think my role obviously will change a little bit under the new system. But on the other hand, I don't think it will change that much. I will still be helping Mr Tung in coordinating the economic, the financial and the monetary portfolio. But on the other hand, one of the main objectives of the new system really is to allow us more time to understand what the community needs and to work with the Legislators. I wish that under the new system, I can actually devote more time to talk to the various sectors of the community to understand their needs and then to coordinate the activities of the various bureaux so that we can meet the community needs to satisfy their expectations a lot better. For the pay adjustments, what we have really is a report from the consultant on how remunerations of the heads of the various statutory bodies or these organisations should be set. The consultant has said very clearly that ultimately the exact level of remunerations of the heads of these institutions should be set by either the governing boards or the governing committees and there should be a committee under these governing boards and governing committees to consider the remunerations. The consultant has also said very explicitly that they have not taken into account the performance level of the incumbents which means that if the incumbents' performance is excellent, the incumbents should be paid a lot more than the median level as indicated. Alternatively, if the performance level is not very good, then they should not actually be getting the median level. But all of these should not be set by either the consultant or by the Government itself. It should really be left to the governing boards on the governing committees.

(Please refer to the Chinese part also)

End/Wednesday, June 26, 2002

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