There then followed a long contractual dispute in which the contractor at first denied responsibility for installing the required equipment but subsequently agreed to install it in order to expedite the issue of the final certificate. However, it was not until January 1985 that the work was completed and the delay meant that the Government had to pay an extra $600,000 in electricity charges for the Airport Tunnel during the period from December 1982 to February 1985. I have been informed that there is no provision within the contract for the recovery of this amount from the contractor and I have asked the Commissioner for Transport to seek legal opinion as to whether there is any way by which the Government can claim damages outside the contract.
Head 186
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184.
Transport Department. Subhead 233. Student travel scheme - payments to operators. The student travel scheme was first introduced in 1971 and substantially revised in 1981. The current arrangement makes all students, including first degree university students, aged 12 to 25, enrolled in full-time education in Hong Kong, eligible for a student travel card which entitles the holder to travel at half the full adult fares on most routes provided by eight transport operators. The concessionary fares are generally available at any time during the day and can be used also on Sundays and school holidays. The student travel cards are issued annually for a fee of $10 a card and nearly 500,000 cards are currently on issue. Grants, based on the difference between the student fares and the adult fares and calculated by reference to a fixed percentage of each operator's total fare income, are paid to transport operators by the Government and the cost is currently about $250 million a year. A recent audit review of the student travel scheme not only noted the numerous administrative problems in implementing it, but also disclosed serious doubts about what the Government's policy objectives for the scheme were.
185.
The scheme had modest beginnings and originated from the decision of one transport operator in 1971 to withdraw its own scheme of concessionary fares for school students. The Government felt that such action could be harmful to students from poor families who benefited from the concessionary fares when travelling to and from school and it was anxious that parents should not suddenly have to assume the extra cost. This was a reasonable concern for the Government but the decision to subsidize the student fares from public funds was essentially a short-term social measure restricted to transport provided by one operator to overcome an immediate problem which at that time was estimated to cost only $8 million a year.