This means that the law would need to be changed at the latest within one year of revoking the franchise and taking over the Company's assets. However, to try to change the law before revoking the franchise would only serve as advance warning to CMB that it was to be replaced. Any advance warning, whether implicit or explicit, that this was intended would mean that, from that moment onward, CMB would be likely to refuse to order buses as it has promised to do, or even to cancel orders already made but not yet fulfilled. It could refuse to make any wage awards. It could mount a campaign against the Government in the press, making complaints, however unjustified, about Government obstructivé ness in the Company's acquisition of land for depots and about the state of the roads (physically and in terms of road congestion) and even branding the proposal as a racial manoeuvre to replace local personnel by foreigners. And it is possible that the 2, 200-strong CMB labour force could be organised to conduct demonstrations against the Government's proposals.
9
Furthermore, even after a take-over was effected, in the short term, during which little or no improvements in the quality of bus services could possibly be brought about, the present owners could still create a very great deal of trouble for the Government - and they would almost certainly not hesitate to do so.
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All this would argue strongly, therefore, for pursuing option (a) in paragraph 3 above, namely to seek to improve the performance of the present Company. Given the Company's past performance, however, there can be no guarantee that the pursuit of this option will be successful, so it would be only prudent to make contingency plans for the pursuit of option (b). This would involve:
(a) preparations to amend the Ordinance;
(b) developing detailed contingency plans for taking over the
assets of CMB while maintaining an effective bus service; and possibly
(c) pre-selecting an alternative operator who could eventually
take over CMB.
CONFIDENTIAL Z
機密