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An
the decision. Such a campaign would highlight their lack of
confidence in the guarantees contained in the Joint
Declaration: this would be damaging in Hong Kong and
internationally and would further antagonise Peking.
exodus would face HKG with the decision of whether they
could do more to encourage key HMOCS officers, eg in the
Police Force, to stay: for example by raising salaries or improving other conditions of service (although in practice
they would have to do this for all civil servants and police
officers at the same rank: they could not be seen to discriminate in favour of expatriates). However, HMG could not be certain of escaping all costs, if they were to adopt this approach. If the Hong Kong dollar were to collapse, or if the SARG were to stop paying pensions, HMG might still be
obliged to intervene (by the terms of the Carr- Robertson
assurance, see Annex A, that HMG would not stand aside in
the case of default or if a pensioner found himself in financial difficulties as a result of non-payment of
pension).
(g) Decision to delay until nearer 1997
18.
There are precedents for this in other Dependent
Territories, where in all cases safeguard schemes were not
introduced until just before independence. In Hong Kong we
want to persuade HMOCS officers to stay up to and beyond
1997, and therefore to give them the assurance well beforehand that their pensions are safe. HMOCS officers have to decide by June whether to transfer to a new pension
scheme (involving the possibility of later retirement and
other changes): they need to know by then what arrangements HMG will be making. By delaying a decision, we would
encourage the HMOCS Associations to step up their pressure
on HMG to reach a firm decision in their favour, and would
ensure that the uncertainties, and the risk of large numbers
of HMOCS deciding to leave, would remain.
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