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A Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government spokesman today (July 13) said that the Government thanks the Legislative Council (LegCo) Finance Committee (FC) for convening extra meetings before its summer recess which has examined and passed over 20 funding applications before the meeting concluded yesterday.
However, the spokesman pointed out that there is still a heavy backlog of funding applications in the FC involving people's livelihood issues.
"The HKSAR Government highly respects LegCo and values its functions and contributions. The Government attaches great importance to the interaction and working relationship with LegCo. Earlier on at the Chief Executive Question and Answer Session in LegCo, a LegCo Member asked if the Government could submit bills and funding applications to LegCo earlier so as to allow more time for deliberation at LegCo. The Chief Executive has already indicated his willingness to accept the suggestion at that session and has followed up on the matters immediately afterwards," the spokesman said.
Recently, the filibustering has led to a serious backlog of FC agenda. There were views that some important funding applications on livelihood issues could not be passed at an earlier time due to the Government's reluctance to re-prioritise the items on the FC agenda. The spokesman stresses that amongst the some 40 funding applications on the agenda, most were in fact related to people's livelihood. These include waiving of one month's rent for public rental housing tenants; disbursing an extra month allowance to Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, Old Age Living Allowance and Old Age Allowance recipients; funding for redevelopment of Queen Mary Hospital; proposed creation of posts for implementing the Low-income Working Family Allowance; implementing the Pilot Training and Support Scheme of Vocational Training Council; an allocation from the Lotteries Fund for constructing a Residential Care Home at Anderson Road, Kwun Tong; establishing the next generation information technology infrastructure for the Social Welfare Department; seeking a supplementary provision to the Student Financial Assistance Agency for the implementation of the Low-income Working Family Allowance; implementation of the Enriched IT Programme in Secondary Schools; implementation of a new hotel development project at the Hong Kong Disneyland; the three landfill extensions and the development of the Integrated Waste Management Facilities; the establishment of the Innovation and Technology Bureau; civil service pay adjustment; the proposal to increase the approved commitment of the Fisheries Development Loan Fund; creation of a number of politically appointed and civil service posts for the proposed Innovation and Technology Bureau, etc. All of these are important and urgent items that are related to people's livelihood, education, welfare and economic development.
"Even if we advance those items related to livelihood issues on the agenda, most of the LegCo Members still considered this impracticable. Take the seven FC meetings from July 11 to 12 totalling 14 hours as an example, only 27 funding applications have been approved. Therefore, no matter how we rearrange the order of the funding applications, the FC would not be able to approve the over 40 funding applications in time and many items related to livelihood issues can only be examined after the LegCo resumes its meetings this October," the spokesman said.
The spokesman reiterates that the HKSAR Government is willing to work with all LegCo Members to improve the efficiency of examining the items, but the Government could not agree with the filibustering by a handful of LegCo Members.
Ends/Sunday, July 13, 2014
Issued at HKT 23:06
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