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them to persuade the rest of their colleagues of the Regional Council as well as the Regional Services Department to reconsider their position on this matter. The HK Philharmonic being the only professional orchestra of international standing in HK deserves our whole-hearted support!
Turning now to another area of the Council's activities which I referred to in my speech at last year's annual debate, that is, privatization. I spoke then about the seemingly insurmountable obstacles which appeared to stand in the way of our efforts to privatize the abattoirs which is costing rate-payers over $70 million by way of operating losses annually. I am disappointed that so little progress has been made in the last 12 months to overcome these difficulties. Let me hasten to add that I am not criticizing the lack of efforts on the part of the Urban Services Department. I am well aware of the hard work put in by the Department to advance this cause. What I am really saying is that as a Councillor, I feel very frustrated. The Council is nominally given autonomy to decide on matters within its jurisdiction. Yet in reality, someone else always seems to be the one that calls the tune. I fully appreciate the reasons why Central Government is reluctant at this point in time to approve the proposals put forward by the Council in this matter.
However, I do feel that Central Government should take on the financial consequences of delaying the privatization of our abattoirs by reimbursing the Council all losses it may incur on the abattoir operations with effect from 1 April 1989 until the privatization proposals are approved by Government.
The third area of my concern is the insoluble problem of control of hawkers. I pay tribute to our fellow members for the sterling work they have done on the working party on hawker policies. Their report included some excellent recommendations which have been arrived at in a dispassionate manner after full consultation with all relevant parties and careful consideration of all the available options. Many months have now passed since their report was issued and yet very little has been done to implement the key recommendations of their report. If we spend 2 years to study a problem to come up with recommended solutions and then someone takes another 2 or more years to talk about the recommendations before any action is taken, there is little wonder why the problem is never solved. The population in Hong Kong is increasing; our streets are getting more crowded; and the number of hawkers is certainly not decreasing. We are clearly dealing with a dynamic problem which is increasing in magnitude the longer it remains unresolved. How long do we have to wait before Government will give us the support we require to implement the recommendation of the working party so that the situation can be improved?
One further matter that I would like to touch on before I sit down. This has been nagging me for the last 4 years ever since I joined the Council. I was very suspicious 4 years ago but I am now totally convinced that there is a conspiracy between someone either in Urban Council or the Urban Services Department and someone in the paper industry. The conspiracy is to unload a worldwide surplus of stocks of paper on the Council. The reasons for my suspicion are not difficult to see. We consume more paper than the Legislative Council, the Executive Council and the District Boards put together. Every time I go on an overseas trip, I return to find a mountain of paper from the Urban Services Department and the Urban Council awaiting me. We help to clear the worldwide surplus of paper stocks by issuing an inordinate number of committee papers on every topic you can imagine and then we copied them to all and sundry. By way of example, I noted recently that we had a paper advising us of the hiring junior member of staff and the document was copied to no less than 84 persons. Is all this really necessary?
Notwithstanding the increase in the size and complexity of the Council's activities, I think it is high time we review and tackle the problem of paper management. On the one hand, we need to be properly informed before policy issues are discussed and decided at our meetings but on the other hand, we must avoid being swamped with a mountain of paper particularly those which deal with day-to-day management matters. A vast number of papers at present deal with matters of a detailed nature which should really be delegated totally to the Department. Also, papers which are excessively lengthy are unlikely to be easily understood so that the salient points may sometimes be overlooked.
I therefore propose for your serious consideration the introduction of a rule that no Urban Council paper should exceed 2 pages long. We should also attempt to reduce the total number of papers by say 10% each year for the next 3 years.
With these remarks, I support the motion.
MR. CHOW WAI-KEUNG (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman and colleagues, tomorrow is the 13th of the month, a black Friday. It is also the first nomination day for the coming Urban Council election. I believe that if we don't review what we have done in the past and look forward to the future, then 9 March 1989 may be a black voting day to us and all our Elected Members may not be re-elected again. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity of reviewing my work in the Council during the past three years and to mention some points in the Statement of Aims for the coming year.
During the past three years which I have served in the Urban Council, I have not expressed a lot of views. However, I have learned a lot from my learned colleagues. In the past, there were many district issues which had fortunately been solved at the district level. These district matters were not in contradiction to UC's policy. Since they are actually related to execution, they have not been discussed at the Urban Council meeting. On the contrary, it would be better for a Councillor to discuss the problems with the District Hygiene Superintendents or other USD district staff. So far as there is no conflict of UC policy, the work could be carried out. I think that to monitor the work of the staff of the USD is to some extent done.
Councillors have the necessary resources to monitor the staff executing the UC's policy at the district level. This monitoring work really depends on
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