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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session after officiating at the commissioning ceremony for the Hong Kong West Drainage Tunnel today (August 22):
Reporter: How much did this project cost the Government?
Chief Secretary for Administration: Which project?
Reporter: (The drainage project.)
Chief Secretary for Administration: This project, how much does it cost? $3 billion.
Reporter: What is its significance to Hong Kong people? Will they have a channel to express their concern if flooding still persists?
Chief Secretary for Administration: This project was conceived several years ago to tackle in a more fundamental way the flooding concerns, which has been causing a lot of inconvenience to residents and to businesses. So they have found this very innovative engineering solution to use these drainage tunnels to take the rainwater all underground and then discharge it into the Victoria Harbour via the Cyberport site. So I'm sure that it will be a great relief to the residents living in this area.
Reporter: With the Chief Executive's announcement yesterday for the access infrastructure, will we be seeing more infrastructure projects like this?
Chief Secretary for Administration: Well, I am making the point that in taking forward Hong Kong's infrastructure programme, we are no longer just focusing on the major projects. You remember we have these 10 mega projects, and we have projects like this which are costing billions of dollars - they are necessary in order to solve some of our fundamental problems like flooding on Hong Kong Island. But at the same time, in this term of Government, the Chief Executive has given us this mandate that no livelihood issue is too trivial. So when it comes to minor infrastructure items, like installation of lifts and escalators to provide better access for elderly people, for people with disabilities or even for babies who are taken around, then we should also focus our attention and put in enough resources. That's why in one go the Chief Executive has announced yesterday this rather extensive programme, not only to install lifts in the 230 sites that we have identified over the years, but also to invite members of the public to suggest whether there are other walkways where they would like to see some lift installations, and we will respond to that very positively.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Issued at HKT 15:30
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