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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
MR. WU CHI-WAI (in Cantonese):---I would like to follow up on the reply. From what Mr. PAO has said, there are objective figures and comments. However, these only come from the reviews in the newspapers which seem to have no objective standard of assessment. If we pay some attention to the cultural columns in the newspapers, we will notice that our performing groups are often under criticism. As an Urban Councillor for so long, I always wonder whether we have responded to these criticisms positively. I would like to raise this question to point out that we should not deceive others as well as ourselves.
MR. PAO PING-WING (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, as this question is quite serious and might be misleading, I would like to make a response. Mr. Wu mentioned about deceiving ourselves and others, it looks as if the work of the Urban Council is deceiving itself and the public. I think I must specially clarify this point. The question Mr. Wu raised reveals two facts. The first fact concerns the cultural columns. Mr. Wu considers that since the performances of these groups are criticized by the columnist, therefore, their standards are low and not up to international level. I totally disagree to this viewpoint as it has made a logical error. Criticism is inevitable. Mr. Chairman, as I just said, we or the people of Hong Kong all agree that you have expertise and knowledge in the management of public toilets. However, there are still criticisms against public toilet facilities. These are two different things. One should well understand that we should view criticisms objectively but the fact that criticisms exist does not imply that a group is of low standard. I hope members will clearly understand this. Secondly, I believe we should respond positively to the criticisms. If we did not do well enough in responding to criticisms, we should consider how we could improve, and I think I have to urge the performing groups to take positive actions in this respect.
MR. WU CHI-WAI (in Cantonese):--The problem is that in the reply, it was said that these performing groups were most representative and attained the international standard. I think in fact Mr. PAO also makes logical error, that is, he equalizes the favourable comments on these performing groups to the representativeness of these groups. Anyway, I don't want to drag on this any more.
CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese):-This is not a question, so there is no need to reply. Mr. LAI Chi-keong, Mr. KAM Nai-wai and Mr. LAI Wing-lin are also waiting for their turn to speak. Let's have Mr. LAI Chi-keong speak first.
MR. JOSEPH LAI CHI-KEONG (in Cantonese):-In para. 3 of Mr. Pao's reply, we can see that in 1995/96 local artists/groups altogether presented 655 performances and the subsidy was around $20.48m, that is, about $30,000 per performance; whereas overseas artists/groups presented 95 performances and the subsidy was around $20.65m, that is, about $210,000 per performance. Just now, the explanation given for this was that those overseas artists were all of first rate
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