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HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
343
What we must know is that if we carefully examine our financial situation, we will find that no matter how the Urban Council economizes and opens up sources of revenue in future, not only will our reserves be completely exhausted, but there will also be a deficit of $500m by 2000. Take a look at the prevailing Urban Council policy. Since we are a service provider, there is limitation in what we can do to increase income and reduce expenditure. In balancing the books, we can neither raise our fees substantially, thereby adding to the burden of the public, nor reduce our services and facilities. We are not like other public bodies, such as the Housing Authority, which enjoys a handsome income from sale of flats and hence a sound financial situation. All we can do is to provide services silently and this is a great drain on our financial resources. Our only source of income is adequate rates allocation. We don't want the Government to cut down on our funding, thereby reducing the Council to the state in which it is the only one among the numerous public bodies to have a considerably large deficit. Neither do we want to witness that because of this, the public mistake the Councillors for incompetence and poor financial managers, as a result of which the Council becomes the scapegoat for the central government's insufficient funding and its image is tarnished. This in turn would provide the Government with strong pretexts for reforming district organizations, retrieving powers and reducing the number of Councillors.
The Government's insufficient provision would bring about a tremendous impact on the services of the Council, which could be both substantial and immediate. An example would be slippage in our municipal projects, which I would leave to my colleague, Mr. NG Wing-fai, to go into details. However, I wish to stress that I have attended a number of meetings of the Council, be they meetings of the Finance Select Committee or the Standing Committee and it seems that a lot of Members are quite relieved, harbouring the idea that some of the municipal projects could still proceed and that there should be no problem. What I do not understand is that for the original budget of $4.7b, we now have only $3.5b. How are we going to carry out activities costing $4.7b? I don't understand at all.
Some Members expressed at meetings the concern that the Department might be deliberately delaying the projects concerned, so that certain district services could not be expanded. We are very worried about this. In handling our financial crisis, the Department recommended that revision in some fees be considered so as to increase our revenue but this was vetoed by Members. This has put our minds at ease for the time being but in the next two to three years, if we still failed to make both ends meet, the pressure on fee increase would likely grow. I must stress here that members of the public have already paid the rates. If we on the one hand could not provide sufficient facilities and on the other, go so far as to raise certain service fees substantially, or try to recoup the cost, or charge expensive admission or other fees, it would amount to double
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