SAVING TELEGRAM
BY BAG
FM ICO
UNCIA PIFIED
TOP
TO HONG KONG SAVING TEL NO 63 OF 3 SEPTEMBER 1974
RECE! D IN REGIS:
5.SEK 17/4
НКК 5/20
YOUR SAVING TEL NO 190 OF 6 AUGUST 1974: AMENDED PRESENTATION OF CERTAIN ITEMS IN THE ANNUAL ESTIMATES OF REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE
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Since the Ordinances establishing both the Urban Council and the Housing Authority as statutory corporations make provision for accounts and audit separate from the Government of Hong Kong, no objection in principle is seen to the proposals in paragraphs 4 and 7 of your telegram
under reference.
2. You may, however, wish to consider whether your object might not just as well be achieved if in place of using "below-the-line" accounting, as you suggest, you were to employ the alternative procedure of crediting the Urban Council and Housing Authority reimbursements to Colony expenditure instead of to revenue. It seems to us that either method would overcome the problem of unnecessarily inflating the revenue and expenditure figures, but the latter might be more appropriate in dealing with personal emoluments which, as you point out, must continue to be included in Colony estimates. We do not feel strongly about this, however, and are content to leave it to you to decide which method to adopt.
3. The proposal in paragraph 10 of your telegram under reference, to the effect that public works projects financed partly from revenue and partly from other sources be presented so as to show only the revenue element, differs somewhat from the other two proposals but we are prepared to agree it also, provided the total cost of each project from all sources is shown somewhere in the estimates and accounts.
4.
Subject to the foregoing, the proposals are hereby agreed and this telegram may therefore be regarded as authorising exemption to this extent from the application of Colonial Regulations 185 and 193.
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