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# HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
commerce and industry and other forms of human activity. The Council's obligation is to ensure that an affluent society shares its wealth with the people who work hard to make it prosperous. Indeed, the Council has a special duty towards the young people of Hong Kong to ensure ever higher standards of service and performance, ever higher standards of cultural and recreational activities, in particular.
The Council owes it to the people to do so. Any attempt to cut back on these services is retrogressive and demeaning to a Council whose record stands comparison with that of any city in the world. I have always been against cutting back. Let us go out instead to a thriving society to find the money to give better service to the people of Hong Kong, more so to the people who live in those congested areas and more opportunities to the young people who will make Hong Kong great in the future. They must be prepared by every means possible and given every opportunity to improve themselves through the actuation of the Council.
Consequently, the Council must go to the Government and say this is what we need. In fact, the Council has done so in private. We must be given the means to do our vital work for the benefit of the people of Hong Kong. I will call the question now. The motion was proposed by me and seconded by the Vice-Chairman, and was discussed fully by all who chose to do so. Please vote now by pressing the button of your choice.
The question was put.
The motion was carried with 18 votes for and 2 abstentions. (The Chairman did not vote.)
2. MR. SHUM CHOI-SANG, CHAIRMAN OF THE MARKETS AND STREET TRADERS SELECT COMMITTEE, moved the following motion:
'RESOLVED that the Hawker (Amendment) By-laws 1980 be made under section 83A of the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance, Cap. 132.'
He said (in Cantonese): -Mr. Chairman, I rise to move the motion standing in my name.
The purpose of the Hawker (Amendment) By-laws now before you is to increase the fees for the issue and renewal of all hawker licences in the urban areas with effect from 1 March 1981. By-law 2 of the Amendment By-laws seeks to amend Part I of the By-laws proper to stipulate the new licence fees for hawker licences in the various categories, and also Part III of the By-laws proper to stipulate the new fees for the allocation of fixed pitches in all categories of fixed pitch hawker licences.
With the exception of the fees for a temporary licence, deputy's permit, and a duplicate licence or permit, all hawker licence fees are payable annually
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and will now range in cost from $6,060 a year for a cooked food stall licence, compared with the existing annual fee of $4,480 to $160 a year for the ordinary itinerant hawker licence compared with the existing fee of $120. The last general fee increase was promulgated on 1 March 1980.
It is necessary to revise these fees in view of the increasingly heavy expenditure incurred by this Council on hawker management and control in the urban areas. During the current financial year, expenditure on this service will total about $52.6 million, whilst revenue from hawker licence and pitch fees is only expected to reach $18.4 million at current fee levels. This amounts to a subsidy by the ratepayer of $34.2 million or 65 per cent. If the fees continue to remain unchanged during 1981/82, this deficit on hawker management and control in urban areas will rise to $42 million or entail a subsidy of about 70 per cent. The new fees to be applied from 1 March 1981 are designed to produce additional revenue during 1981/82 of about $6.3 million so as to reduce the subsidy on this service to 60 per cent. Whilst this will lighten the burden on the ratepayer, it will still mean that the Council will be contributing approximately $36.2 million towards the total cost of hawker management and control.
It is intended in the future that the level of subsidy I have referred to should not be allowed to rise above 60%. Indeed, every effort through regular reviews, will be made to reduce this percentage of subsidy further with the ultimate intention of abolishing it altogether in the future.
With these remarks, I beg to move.
MR. AMBROSE K. C. CHOI, VICE-CHAIRMAN OF THE MARKET AND STREET TRADERS SELECT COMMITTEE, seconded (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, as Vice-Chairman of the Markets and Street Traders Select Committee, I would like to second the motion.
CHAIRMAN (in English): The motion has been proposed by the Chairman of the Markets and Street Traders Select Committee and seconded by the Vice-Chairman. It is now open for discussion.
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I am not opposed to raising hawker licence fees. I think that on the whole, they are below current prices but I do question the argument of the Chairman of the Markets and Street Traders Select Committee. Do these figures that have been mentioned, viz. $52.6 million expenditure compared with $18.4 million income for hawker control and management, include the extensive manpower necessary to try to keep down illegal hawking and so on to be charged on the licensed hawkers?
MR. STEPHEN M. L. LAU (in Cantonese): -Mr. Chairman, besides the points raised by Mr. SHUM, I would like to comment that: at the present level of
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