Page 100 of 606
PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
121
participation. In other words, we want to abolish all appointed, ex-officio and indirectly elected seats.
The Party agrees that there is need to review the images of the two municipal councils and the division of work among departments. However, to disband the two municipal councils on this excuse is a passive attitude. It is not of help in increasing chances for public political participation. Worse still, it has a negative effect on the aim to go for overall democracy.
At present, the two municipal councils execute similar functions but devise different policies. The two councils have 16,000 and 11,000 staff respectively. The Democratic Party feels that on merging the two municipal councils and municipal services departments to attain consistency of policies, streamlining of the organisation structure and enhancement of administrative efficiency will be resulted. That is, from the angle of administrative management. For example, there are at present 24 directorate civil servants in the two municipal councils and they are in charge of culture and recreation, environmental health and food safety. After merging, directorate grade posts for similar activities can be deleted. However, when we met the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Mr. Michael SUEN the day before yesterday at a meeting, he made clear that merging of the two municipal services departments would only bloat the establishment.
I do not understand what Government is thinking of. At the same time when the idea presented is for streamlining, it is said that merging of two departments will bloat the establishment. This is plain bureaucracy. Saying and doing may not be in the same line.
As for the function of district boards, they made a lot of contributions in the past. District board members have developed good understanding of district matters and they have dealt with matters in great details. This is not something to be found in the other two tiers of representative government. The value of the existence of district boards is therefore certain and we feel that having 18 district boards is quite appropriate.
We support merging of the two municipal councils, streamlining of the administrative structure and retaining the structure of 18 district boards.
At present, there are 50 members in each municipal council and they are all appointed by the CE. Before the change of sovereignty, there used to be 59 elected councillors, 18 district board member representatives, 3 ex-officio members (all Regional Council representatives) on the two municipal councils. On the district board level, there used to be a total of 346 members and 27 ex-officio members before the changcover. Although the elected members are in name appointed by the CE for a smooth transition, their appointments are considered on the basis of their elected background. The Democratic Party feels there is no need to cut the number of elected members via the review on district organisations in order to block chances of public participation. As for
Page 100 of 606
Page 100 of 606
Page 100Page 101