SAVING TELEGRAM
BY BAG
T HONG KONG
UNCLASSIFIED
TO FCO SAVING TEL NO 190 OF 6 AUGUST 1974.
Reference (9) in CR 3/2321/74
Payment on a below-the-line account
Colonial Regulations 185 and 193
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TOP COPY
N 52
14 AUG 1974
NKK 3/20
The purpose of this saving telegram is to seek
your agreement to an exception being made to the application of Colonial Regulations 185 and 193 by extracting the following provisions from the Annual Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure to a "below-the-line" account
payment of personal emoluments for the Urban Council and the Hong Kong Housing Authority;
(a)
(b)
provision of services for the Urban Council and the Hong Kong Housing Authority;
(c)
projects financed in part or in whole from loans which are not part of the General Revenue.
(a) Personal Emoluments
Present arrangements
LACT
31
33
2.
The Urban Council Ordinance 1973 confers on the Urban Council a significant degree of financial autonomy. The Council is free with effect from 1st April 1973 to draw up its budget and finance the budget from the yield from the Urban Council rate and certain other sources of revenue. As a result of this financial autonomy, no provision is made in the Government annual estimates of expenditure for annually recurrent other charges or special expenditure. But as the staff for the Urban Council are to remain in the public service, posts, for staff and provision for personal emoliments continue to appear in the annual estimates (via Head 88 Urban Services Department (for Urban Council) Subhead J Personal emoluments in the 1974-75 Estimates). Thus emoluments for the posts are paid for initially from General Revenue and are voted each year by the Legislature. The Urban Council reimburses Government the full cost of the posts (other than the emoluments pertaining to the Director and Deputy Directors
/whose