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MR. EDWARD HO : Will the Government inform this Council
whether the 21 new posts were created as a result of
Mr. SOHMEN's question?
FINANCIAL SECRETARY : No, Sir!
Mr. SOHMEN : Sir, I presume the Financial Secretary is
aware that before the stock market crash the stamp duty
collected from transactions in the stock market in any one
day occasionally exceeded the
exceeded the total annual
annual budget of the
Office of the Commissioner for Securities. Would he not
agree that this suggests that the facilities put in place
to supervise the markets were totally out of line with the
volume of business that had to be policed?
FINANCIAL SECRETARY : Sir, as Mr. SOHMEN knows, we do not
hypothecate general revenue. We were, of course, very
grateful for the large increase of revenue from stock
exchange activities but I think it would have been wrong
to have devoted all that revenue to staffing the Office of
the Commissioner for Securities.