Page 254
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
CHAIRMAN: On a point of clarification, when you were going outside the subject matter of the Motion, that is when you referred to two reports on local government, you said nothing had been heard about these. I did make a brief mention in my speech at the annual conventional debate saying that an officer, a senior officer, was employed full-time on taking a new look at this problem.
MR. HU: Thank you Mr. Chairman for your assurance.
MR. BERNACCHI: Mr. Chairman, I rise to second this Motion. I would like to say straight away that I hope it is not the Government's policy to regard the District Officers as a substitute for an Ombudsman. I have now had your assurance on this very point. When an Ombudsman System comes to Hong Kong, and I say, when, not if, the essential difference is that he and his staff should be independent of the Government and have direct access to the Governor. Having said this, I am not one who is willing to decry the District Officer system without giving it a chance. Of course, it all depends upon the particular District Officers, some of them, in fact, I know personally and I think that they will not be embarrassed to put forward the complaints they receive with firmness, even though it may run contrary to the opinions of very high Government servants. Indeed, I should like these very high Government servants to come down sometimes to the District Officers' Office, and be present at some of their interviews to see for themselves the problems of the man in the street, the citizen of Hong Kong.
But nevertheless the District Officers are themselves Government servants. They cannot be a substitute for a non-government servant system like the Ward System of this Council. Are they willing to cooperate with this Ward System? If so, the experiment might, indeed, be a success. The citizens will come to the Ward Offices, which could be also made the District Officers, knowing that, in over-all charge, there is a person who is not a Government servant. This remains true whether they see the Urban Councillor personally or they see the District Officer or preferably they see both together. From the Council's point of view, the District Officer System can make available to this Council the whole administrative system that it is envisaged will be set up.
The amount that the Urban Councillor can do with the cooperation of the District Officers, will more than likely, be much more than the amount that they can do for the individual citizen at the present time. Conversely, a slight variation on the old adage is appropriate perhaps, "United we stand, divided the District Officers system will undoubtedly fall". The vast majority of the Urban Councillors will work with the District Officers, I hope the District Officers will work with the Urban Councillors.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
483
With these few remarks I repeat again that I am very happy to second this Motion which, if passed, I hope will be forwarded to the Government to express this Council's view on the District Officers system from the outset.
DR. BELL: Mr. Chairman, I rise to support this Motion. I too, feel that the District Officer system must be given a chance to see whether it will work or not. There are points which are doubtful about it, there's no question of that, and one of the largest doubts of course is whether the public will have the same confidence in going to a Government servant as they would to somebody who is not a Government servant.
The second doubt I have and which Mr. BERNACCHI has just put forward, is will the heads of departments be prepared to listen to what the District Officers say, even if they may be considerably junior in rank to the heads of departments. As to the question of the Ward system, Mr. Hu mentioned that it went through without anybody opposing the question of having a Ward system. In fact the Ward system came into being I think 3 years ago, but it was first mooted as long ago as 1954 or 1955 so it did take considerable time to go through, in fact it took at least 10 years.
Having now gone through, and I think proving itself successful, this Motion which Mr. Hu has moved today that the new District Officers should work closely in co-operation with the Ward System is, I think, of the utmost importance. As a rule, with the present system of the Council, the Ward Officers, that is to say the Council members, attend once a week or perhaps once fortnight and some may be even less, but even at once a week I think it might be practical for the District Officers to sit in on these sessions that the Councillors have in their Wards—I think they would learn a lot and would be fulfilling the duties Mr. Tsur outlined a short while ago in answer to Mr. Hilton CHEONG-LEEN's question. That is to say, they will have to find out the feeling of the people and their problems and so on. I think it would become perfectly clear to District Officers if they came to attend the Ward sessions.
One of the biggest problems in every district is housing. I think that the District Officers, perhaps along with the Councillors, co-operating together, could do much to get changes in policy or in conditions which at present are imposed for getting into the different types of housing that we have here; to enable people who are suffering very much from shocking housing conditions to get into better housing. I would hope very much that the District Officers would be prepared to come to these sessions. Equally, I suppose, if the District Officer would like the Councillors to come to his office at times I'm quite sure that Councillors would be prepared to accept. Of course, Councillors are not paid Government servants and most of them at present have to earn their own living because they are not paid by any local authorities as they would be if there were proper local district government, with proper financing of local government where the rates would be appropriated and where members of the
Page 255