-
-
territory in which an overseas pensioner served, whether an independent former Colony or still a Colony, is neither consulted or involved in these matters. The procedure for the payment of t SPOS to overseas pensioners with Hong Kong service is thus purely a matter for the British Government.
Application of these Pension Procedures to Hong Kong
7. When former Colonial territories gained independence it was feared that the value of the currencies of successor territories would in all probability fall against international currencies such as sterling. Initially in some territories the contrary proved to be the case. More recently, however, those fears have proved to be correct. For example, Uganda, in Colonial days a reasonably prosperous country, devalued its currency a few years ago by over 300%. Northern Rhodesia - Zambia also in Colonial days a reasonably prosperous country, has seen the value of its Kwacha once worth ten shillings or fifty pence fall to just over three pence.
While it is accepted that these are perhaps extremes, no one at the time of independence or during the perici leading thereto, despite their fears, would have forecast such drastic falls. And imagine the effects on a pensioner of such a dramatic reduction in the sterling value of overseas pensions had an exchange rate not been fixed. The value of almost all the currencies of the successor States have fallen in relation to sterling since independence.
-
8. The Association, while in no way wishing to express an absence of confidence in the future of Hong Kong, must, against this back- ground, have fears as to what will happen in the pensions field after the administration of that Territory ceases to be a British responsibility and, indeed, during the period leading up to the transfer of that responsibility to China and its Special Administrative Region. The Association's contacts with its members living and serving in Hong Kong leave it in no doubt whatsoever that those fears exist now: they are not imaginary. And they are held, perhaps not so much by the most senior members of the administration, but by those officers who are being asked to ensure that the administration of the Colony is maintained at its present high level of efficiency for the next ten years. As a Hong Kong newspaper put it recently, it is "a restless civil service which finds job opportunities elsewhere increasingly attractive." Suck
Page 75Page 76
1