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Financing aspects
10.
The Governor has advised that a contribution of not less than
£4 milllion would be appropriate. In view of the substantial and increasing burden which the Hong Kong Government are having to bear, and given the intensity of feeling about boat people in the territory, I believe that a contribution of this size would be about
right. Anything less would be seen in Hong Kong as inadequate and
not commensurate to the scale of the problem.
11. If Ministers agree that funds must be found for this purpose, there are three possible sources:
This
(a) Diversion of funds from current aid programmes. would involve very difficult choices about priorities and would be difficult to defend for the reasons given in paragraph 9 above.
(b) Allocation of funds from the ODA's Contingency Reserve. A substantial proportion of the Contingency Reserve has already been earmarked and the balance will have to be carefully husbanded.
present £
million remains unallocated.
At
The
(c) A bid for additional funds from the Central Reserve.
chances of success are uncertain and it is likely that if we were to
resort to this route we would be unable to respond within the timescale which the Governor has requested.
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A R Paul