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THE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF HONG KONG
ment department is the Housing Authority. This is responsible for the building and management of public housing estates, both those for rent and also, since 1978, those for sale under the Home Ownership Scheme. The Chairman of the Authority is the Secretary for Housing and there are 20 members (14 unofficials and 6 officials). Policy is decided in six standing committees, all of which have unofficials as chairmen and an unofficial majority. The decisions taken are implemented by the Hous- ing Department of government which is staffed entirely by civil servants, whose salaries are reimbursed by the Authority. The recurrent income of the Authority comes mainly from the rents paid by the tenants in the estates which it manages, while its building programme is financed by loans from the government's Development Loan Fund. These must be repaid free of interest over 40 years, and the Authority is also required to cover its day-to-day operating costs out of revenue. It is free of gov ernment control in determining its policies covering the management of the estates and the allocation of tenancies, but its rate of construction is effectively determined by the Financial Secretary, who decides how much money can be advanced for building new estates each year, and also by the amount of formed land made available by the New Terri- tories Development Department.
There are some similarities between the Housing Authority and the Urban Council, but the latter body will be dealt with in more detail in Chapter 11.
The Vegetable Marketing Organization and the Fish Marketing Orga- nization are also statutory corporations like the Housing Authority but they are run rather differently. The head of both organizations is the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries and he is assisted in each case by an advisory board composed of farmers and fishermen, but which does not have executive powers. Both organizations provide for the transport of vegetables and fish respectively to the wholesale markets which they manage and where they supervise all transactions. In addition they provide other services such as the bulk buying of supplies for resale to farmers, the provision of low-interest loans to fishermen for the re-equipment of their boats, and scholarships for their children's educa- tion. The organizations are non-profitmaking and are financed by a commission on sales (10 per cent for vegetables, 6 per cent for fish). Amost all the staff are directly employed by the organizations, with the exception of a few civil servants in the Agriculture and Fisheries Department.
The next group of organizations is rather further removed from direct government control. These are the Productivity Council, the Trade Development Council, the Tourist Association, and the Consumer Council. These were all set up by ordinance and provide promotional services and other facilities for business men and the ordinary public. The Tourist Association, for example, not only advertises Hong Kong internationally as a desirable holiday destination, but also investigates complaints by individual tourists of overcharging. All employ their own staff at commercial rates of pay, though they are subject to the general
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