Question:
Reply by the Secretary for Security to a Question by the Hon. YEUNG Po-kwan, CPH., in the Legislative Council on 1 May, 1985
Question 11
In view of the increase in the number of travellers passing through the immigration control point at Man Kam To, would Government consider employing additional staff to man the new facilities there when they become operational in December this year?
Reply:
sir,
As I said in this Council during the debate on the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill 1985, no provision for additional posts for the Immigration Department has been included in the 1985-86 Estimates.
One answer is redeployment of existing staff. The Director of Immigration is acutely conscious of the need to deploy the Department's staff in the most effective way in the short term to meet temporary changes in the flow of passengers and in the long term as the habits of the travelling public change. But there are limits to the extent to which staff can be deployed in any particular direction. These limits, dictated by the consequences of depleting staff at other control points, may well now have been reached. Over the last two years (1982 to 1984) the number of vehicles going through the control point at Man Kam To has been increased from 591,000 to 1.3 million and the number of passengers from 248,000 to 310,000 a year. At the same time, the number of travellers going through the control points at, say, Kai Tak has increased from 7.5 million to 8.5 million a year.
But the fact of the matter is that there are problems at Man Kam To and new facilities are now being built to meet them. They will have to be manned somehow, perhaps even by the redeploy- ment of posts from other heads of expenditure.