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construction of temporary or permanent buildings into which street traders are moved? If such criteria or limits are yet to be established and as many able-bodied young persons continued to use street trading as a means of gainful employment, will the Council establish such criteria or limits to help in its decision making in fulfilling the above major aims?
MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN, CHAIRMAN OF THE MARKETS AND STREET TRADERS SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows (in English):—This question asks whether there are any established criteria in terms of capital and recurrent expenditure per licensed hawker (and I would add unlicensed hawkers) in building temporary or permanent Urban Council markets and hawker bazaars into which hawkers are moved.
The answer is that there are no such established criteria. It would, moreover, be entirely misleading to attempt to determine market costs on a per hawker basis. The question seems to presume that Council's hawker policy and market policy are one and the same. They are not so, although clearly they are related. The Council acknowledges an obligation to provide markets as a community service in the same way that refuse collection points, parks, playgrounds and a host of other facilities are provided. The Hong Kong Planning Standards provide guidelines on the proper provision of market facilities on the basis of population—not the number of hawkers. The Town Planning Board then identifies sites which may be used for this purpose within the context of the Outline Zoning Plans and so on. The proper equation, therefore, should relate market costs to community needs and not to hawkers. The impetus behind the market building programme remains the commitment to provide market facilities to the community and not the moving of hawkers off street, although this is the desirable result.
To help the Council in its decision making when approving new market projects, the Department usually sets out in Committee papers very clearly the financial implications involved in respect of each and every project as regards the capital and recurrent expenditure and the likely revenue. It is difficult, however, to assess the construction cost of a market alone, as markets are normally built as part of UC Complexes in order to maximize land use.
The Council's subsidy to the administration costs involved in the management and control of licensed hawkers is normally looked at in the annual review of hawker licence fees.
The question also refers to the number of younger persons engaged in hawking. I agree that it would no doubt be desirable for such persons to take up alternative and more constructive employment. However, it is clearly not the Council's responsibility nor is it within the capacity of the Council to prevent young persons from hawking. With this background in mind, it is not the Council's policy to apply any age qualification when licensing hawkers provided the hawkers are not under-age.
(Mr. Ambrose CHEUNG Wing-sum arrived at 2.45 p.m.)
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MR. PAUL YOUNG TSE-KONG (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I find it even more confusing after reading the answer itself and I do urge that perhaps the relevant Committee should look at this question once more. I will appreciate that because I am extremely confused by the answer.
MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN (in English):-Mr. Chairman, the problems of hawkers and building of markets have been in Hong Kong since time immemorial so I am not surprised that Mr. YOUNG has admitted that the reply can be confusing. But as we all know the building of markets for the community and the management and control of hawkers is a continuing process and with Mr. YOUNG's participation in the Markets and Street Traders Select Committee, I am sure that this problem will be very much kept in the minds of the Select Committee and the Council. But I would add that in terms of recurrent costs, the Council does attempt to operate markets efficiently and cost effectively. So to this end, we are going ahead with the agreed recommendations arising from the Consultancy Report on 'Organization and Management of Public Market'. This Report was carried out not too long ago by Peat Marwick. It should also be borne in mind that in our newer markets which are being built, we will be taking into account the recommendations of the Working Party to Review Hawker and Related Policies so these markets will be as viable as possible. Furthermore, each of our old markets is being separately reviewed by the Department in order to determine what measures need to be taken to make them more effective and viable. It needs to be emphasised that the Consultants determined that 68% of U.C. markets fully recovered direct cash costs. To rationalise the whole question of rentals, a major review is taking place now and this will be considered by the Council in a short time. I don't think I need to mention too much further about hawkers otherwise the meeting could continue indefinitely.
MOTIONS
1. THE CHAIRMAN, URBAN COUNCIL moved the following motion (in English):-
"That the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for 1990-91 and the list of works which the Council proposes to undertake during the next financial year be approved for transmission to the Governor in accordance with Section 39 of the Urban Council Ordinance."
I moved the adoption of today's Motion on the Urban Council's budget, otherwise known as the 'Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, with the accompanying list of capital works for the 1990-91 financial year commencing on 1 April 1990.
I am concerned at the turnaround in our financial position. For the first item since the year 1985-86, we shall end the current financial year with a deficit of about $83 million. This rather modest deficit will, however, increase to a very
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