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part of the Urban Council finance are somewhat out of our control. To name a few examples, the Urban Council derives 74% of its income from rates, the Urban Council has no control over an increase in rates, hence, 74% of our income is fixed by the Government. Secondly, the Urban Council has over thousands staff under its wing in the USD, total emolument make up of 59% of total Urban Council expenditures. Despite an effort to hold down the number of staff employed, the Urban Council has no control over salary adjustment proposed by the Government, which is applicable to all civil servants and this includes the Urban Services staff. Thirdly, the Urban Council has increased its capital works programme in various districts. We have been asked by district boards to do more in their respective district boards, but each capital works project has to be manned and staffed. I therefore appeal to all Councillors and all related people to note this critical situation of the Council and work together to help the Council through this very difficult period. With these words, I support the motion.
MR. BERNACCHI (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I had not really made up my mind whether or not to speak today, but when you actually threw the motion open to members and asked members to raise their hands wanting to speak, only three hands were raised. Now that does not in any way demonstrate the real interest in the budget the members have had in Standing Committee of the Whole, when almost every member voiced his concern at the running down of our reserves, perhaps not necessarily disastrous this year, it certainly will be disastrous next year if something is not done about it. I moved a motion more than a year ago that the Standing Committee of the Whole be opened to the public, and I do impress upon members the importance of open Government and we are part of the Government and the press perhaps will on today's hearing get the wrong impression that most of us are content to say nothing and just vote for the motion, that is not true and it is certainly not the impression that I got from the Standing Committee of the Whole in which the budget was discussed.
CHAIRMAN (in English):—Judging from the exchange of views expressed on one question which is answered by Miss Cecilia YEUNG, it seems almost like a Standing Committee of the Whole Council meeting, which has been opened up to the public to meet. But Mr. BERNACCHI has made a very good point and I would like to invite more members to speak, I think Mr. CHUNG has raised his hand, Mr. CHUNG.
MR. AUGUSTINE CHUNG (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, when I first entered the Urban Council, every year I listened to this threatening words about our deficit and about our survival but we have managed. Now I think we are pretty numb to these threatening words concerning our deficit and about the bankruptcy of the Urban Council, but why did we manage to provide all these services despite all these financial difficulties? Is it true that the Government will
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every time give us money when we say that we do not have enough? Is there a gentlemen's agreement between the Central Government and the Urban Council, can we do without all these threatening words and get the money we need from the Central Government? I think the Central Government should realize the need we have and I do not think we should have all these threats here or have really been relying upon the generosity of the Central Government for too long? Shouldn't we be independent because it is said that we are financially autonomous so I really do not understand why we have to beg from the Government every year. Now even if we have a gentlemen's agreement, I think we should review our position to look at our autonomy, are we really financially autonomous, how should we deal with our expenditure and our income? I think we need more information concerning this.
MR. LAWRENCE FUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I intend to support the motion. This is my first year to sit on the Finance Select Committee and I am satisfied that we have done a very close scrutiny of the estimates as tabled this afternoon but that does not mean that there is no room for further improvement and as you have said so in the statement, Mr. Chairman, the planning of the next year's budget will start immediately at the beginning of the next financial year, therefore, we will no doubt have more time to examine the future budget in further detail. I am also concerned about the so-called 'red-figure' that we are facing and I certainly share the view of Mrs. FONG that unless we show further prudence we will be having financial disasters. Mr. Edmund CHOW and Mr. Frederick FUNG both have given the subject very deep thought and I certainly agree with most of what they have said. We are constrained on the one hand by not willing to raise additional revenue to cover the projected deficit, but to me that is in fact a little bit of red herring because if we want to cover the forthcoming deficit it is only averaging something like $3 to $4 per person in the whole of Hong Kong, and that is less than the cost of a pack of cigarette a year per person or an MTR ticket from here to Tsim Sha Tsui, so we can well raise that amount of money to break even. The point that really concerned me is whether we have scrutinized our expenditure both in terms of PE, operational and non-recurrent expenditure, so that we have a clear conscience anyway, we are sure that maximum efficiency has been achieved that is the biggest objective. Our discussion this afternoon is no different from the one debated at LegCo a week or so ago, there is no such thing as having less taxation and yet supply more services to the public, as the two are opposite forces. We must somehow find a happy medium and let the public be aware too, that we can cut our services but before they realize it, that the streets will be a little dirtier and there will be less environmental hygiene protection in our restaurants. We can run our garbage trucks a little longer than the usual life of these garbage trucks, but then they will be belching out more smoke and then the whole of Hong Kong would be having more poison, so there are various ways of cutting our cloth, various ways of spending our money or not spending our money, let the public be aware that there are no such thing as free lunch or have your cake and eat it.
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