CFinal Secretary's position could mean financial disaster for Hongkong.
TARGET today confirmed the facts of the computer run-off which was done late last week by Wilbur Smith and Associates, the American consulting engineers, closely linked with the tube since its inception.
Wilbur Smith prepared a mathematical model of passenger usage, updating earlier information, which pointed out gross fallacies in the Government's basic thinking.
The computer company, Chartered On-Line Ltd, provided the necessary computer facilities. The mathematical model was coded so that only restricted people could have access to the information and the frightening results.
The computations were an updated version of the original 32-mile system which the Japanese consortium, led by Jardine Matheson, had planned to build and had even gone so far as to sign a Letter of Intent.
The Japanese backed out after trying to reason with the Hongkong Government over
the final cost structure and specifications of the tube. The Japanese wanted to update the pricing system in excess of the $5,000 million ceiling which the Financial Secretary said would never be exceeded.
TARGET was told that when the Hongkong Government reduced the original 4-Stage System to the Initial System after the Japanese withdrawal, the Hongkong Government had to make quick changes to the original computations of passenger usage since the Japanese had used a different set of calculations for their 32-mile network as opposed to the Hongkong Government's truncated 14-miles, or
so, railway system.
The main object of the mathematical model was to estimate the revenue from the tube in its new and reduced form by having 'feeder' passenger services, presumably using Kowloon Motor Bus and/or mini-buses.
The figures obtained from the computer analysis of this new mathematical model show conclusively that no bank, financial institution or other Government would consider lending Hongkong the cash to build a system doomed to financial
-2-