HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
from all ward offices. I think that means, Sir, that he does not call for any copies of correspondence. Can I have that confirmed?
VICE-CHAIRMAN: Yes, I can confirm that.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: Thank you very much.
MR. SALES: Sir, may I have your permission to make a personal statement?
I do not think that it is necessary for Urban Councillors to put into the log book the nature of the complaint. It is only a question of recording the number of people coming forward to ask for an interview with the Councillor of a particular ward. That is the system Mr. CHEONG-LEEN and I follow in Tsim Sha Tsui and Yau Ma Tei. The nature of the complaint is kept on a separate piece of paper, and that is filed by ourselves. In point of fact, copies of all the correspondence that I have entered into in response to visits paid to my ward office by members of the public are made available to the Secretary of the Urban Council so that he may follow up where it is necessary to do so. I believe that the practice should be followed whereby members do not enter into the log book the nature of the complaint. The nature of the complaint and the details of the complaint should be kept by the member himself in his own file.
MRS. ELLIOTT: Mr. Chairman, may I rise on a point of clarification. I agree with Mr. SALES. In this case, the nature of the complaint was not written. I deliberately left it out, and the action I took was also not recorded. The trouble was the name and address of a civil servant.
DR. BELL: Mr. Chairman, could I ask a supplementary on this? Is it necessary when the Secretary recalls the books that they have to be away for such a long period? I find it inconvenient in my ward because we do not have the record of our own case numbers. I dare say, in Mr. SALES' case, it wouldn't matter because I see that in any case, he wouldn't have had to write anything down in the last month at all, because there were no visits to his ward. (Laughter).
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, with your permission, Dr. BELL has very maliciously avoided looking at the footnote in the monthly report, where it is stated that I was away during June, and all the work in June was done by my colleague Mr. CHEONG-LEEN. So if Dr. BELL had any complaint to make to the Tsim Sha Tsui ward, she should have made it to Mr. CHEONG-LEEN, my elected colleague. I must say I deplore very strongly the fact that the Acting Chairman of the Reform Club should make such wild allegations (Laughter) against fellow Councillors, and if this is the standard that members of the public can expect of the Reform Club, Sir, I feel very sorry for the electors. (Laughter).
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
DR. BELL: Do I detect a little bit of jealousy on the part of Mr. SALES, in that nobody visits the Tsim Sha Tsui ward. (Laughter). Quite a lot of people visit the ward of the Chairman of the Reform Club, who is not here, and of the Acting Chairman of the Reform Club who is present. May I have an answer to my question about the books?
VICE-CHAIRMAN: The Secretary has a lot of other things to do besides checking the log books. He has to do this in between his other work. He has only recalled the books twice since the scheme started in November, and I have no doubt he would be very pleased to try and get them back quicker. However, I do not think that log books need normally be referred to if you merely enter another page when the books are not in the ward office.
DR. BELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your reply, but in fact, when a case returns for the second time rather than write down the whole details again, it is normal to refer to the case already entered as case number one hundred and something or whatever it is. In Tsim Sha Tsui ward, it would be case No. 1-(Laughter).
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: Mr. Chairman, with your permission, may I reply to the query raised by Dr. BELL? I should say in advance that it ought to be known by now that the ward representatives for the Tsim Sha Tsui and Yau Ma Tei wards are rather diffident persons. They do not like to say too much about what they do. During Mr. SALES' absence, there was one request made to see the Councillors, but I asked that he should be good enough to wait until Mr. SALES' return, and we are going to see him within the next few days. And also, there was an additional complaint made to our ward, but directly to Mr. SALES and myself by telephone. This came from 700 persons, Mr. Chairman. It was an official complaint made through the association which represents these 700 residents in the Tsim Sha Tsui ward, and we don't like to bring forth that information unless we are forced to, otherwise, we might be putting some of our colleagues, such as Dr. BELL, to shame.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, I am compelled to disclose this, although I do not think it is correct for me to do so, but Dr. BELL has been baiting me: that many of the cases that I attend to either in the ward office or in my own office are cases coming from the wards served by members of the Reform Club. They claim they have received no response. They had got no results from (Laughter) complaints made in their ward office, so they thought they should come to Tsim Sha Tsui where the councillors are known to be men of action. (Laughter).
DR. BELL: Nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, may I point out that the fact still remains that nobody went to complain (Laughter) last month.
MR. SALES: They came to my office, my private office.
Page 99 of 279