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community as a whole will in the end lose more than it will gain. Those of us, members of the media and officials who care for the development of Hong Kong should think twice.
In fact, the Consultation Document on Review of District Organisations is advantageous to the Urban Council because it gives us an opportunity to reflect and improve. We should take a fresh look of ourselves in light of public criticism and engineer changes to suit the changing times. In this way, the Urban Council will evolve into one which is more dynamic, more accountable, more responsive to public opinion, more capable in monitoring the work of government officials. Let us look towards stepping into new horizons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. LEE KWOK-KEUNG (in Cantonese):-Several members of the Democratic Party have prepared an opinion paper on the Consultation Document on Review of District Organisations. It is entitled 'full direct election to district boards, merging of the two municipal councils and full answerability over the food hygiene function'. (Please refer to the Opinion Paper on Review of District Organisations prepared by the Democratic Party at enclosure 11.)
All along in the progress of our development on representative government, district organisations have moved towards democratisation. By 1995, appointed seats on district boards were scrapped although district members were still accepted through indirect elections into the Urban Council or ex-officio seats of the Heung Yee Kuk. The abolition of appointed seats represented a new stage of democracy. Unfortunately, after the handover of sovereignty, the SAR Government has not gone further in implementing direct elections to increase accountability of district organisations, but instead has brought back appointed seats to organisations and slowed down the progress of democracy.
The image of the two municipal councils has been rather low in recent years. There is need to improve efficiency and streamline the division of work with other government departments. For this reason, the Democratic Party supports a review of the structure and function of district organisations. After the publication of the Consultation Document on Review of District Organisations, the Democratic Party interviewed by telephone on 7 and 8 July a total of 545 persons to gauge their views on whether the two municipal councils should be retained. I would like to go over some of the findings.
Views on the services of the two municipal councils were divided. We found from the survey that one-third of the respondents was satisfied with the performance of the Urban Council, one-third was dissatisfied and the remaining one-third had no opinion to offer.
When we tried to gauge the views of respondents on the various options given in the Consultation Document, we found that 33% agreed to merging of the two councils, 17.1% agreed to abolish them and 26.4% supported
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