POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION ...4
ALTERNATIVE ADMINISTRATION
The government maintains that there is no alternative to CSD administration. In a letter to Oxfam in February 1988 Secretary for Security Jeafferson said: "The CSD is the only organisation with the experience necessary for the managing of centres of large numbers of people in a confined environment. We do not agree that any other department or voluntary agency has the required expertise."
The government denies that camp administrators are any more repressive than is absolutely necessary. "The refugees are given as much freedom as is possible within the confine of their place of enforced environment. Control is not the concern."
Oxfam, in a report dated November 1987, urged the government to consider handing over camp managemet to welfare agencies but gave no detailed proposals. There are a number of welfare organisations operating within the camps, each responsible for specific educational, vocational or other welfare projects. Channels of communication are often confused, and social workers say various agencies occasionally work at cross purposes. It seems likely that unless some coordinating body is established, any transfer of camp management would get bogged down in inter-agency politics.
In times of crisis, such as August 1987 when over 7,000 Vietnamese flooded to Hong Kong from China, camps have been constructed and efficiently run by Civil Aid Services, a government body of emergency workers with a permanent administrative staff of 110.