Page 250 of 606
PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
245
Councils. I have checked the list of the organizations whose submissions are quoted in the Report, which only covers the Arts Development Council and the Sports Development Board while there is no mentioning of the views of the Hong Kong Cultural Sectors Joint Conference and the Hong Kong Art Critics Association. Most of the comments focused on the bureaucracy of the Urban Services Department. They were from the cultural sector. Their criticisms were not so much directed against the Urban Council as against officials of the Urban Services Department for abuse of power and suffocate the development of culture. They criticized the functions for being too centralized rather than being too fragmented, which was exactly contrary to the conclusion made by the Report. However, the Government has quoted only the views of the Sports Development Board and Arts Development Council. We all know it very well that since the establishment of these two organizations, there have been obvious clashes between them and the Urban Council, Members will recall that the Council sent one of our colleagues to the organizations for discussion and coordination. This is a fact and not a secret at all. Everyone expected that they would criticize the Council and it did turn out that the Government included their criticisms in the Report. Of course, neither are these two organizations aware of the fact that the Government is going to dissolve them as well.
The third point is about the views of academics. The Report mentions that four academics were supportive of the dissolution of the Councils, namely, Lau Siu-kai, Lau Pui-king, Peter Cheung Chan-yin and Joseph Cheng Yu-shek. I have studied the views of these four academics. LAU Pui-king and LAU Siu-kai were in favour of Option Three, not the dissolution. They supported the merge of the Councils with the District Boards into five bodies. All I can say is that I am absolutely amazed.
The Report also quotes the views of Robert CHUNG Ting-yiu. Although Mr. CHUNG favoured the dissolution of the Municipal Councils, he attached a number of conditions, such as delegation of authority to the District Boards.
It was not, as the Government claims, dissolving the two Municipal Councils, retaining the 18 District Boards without changing the structure and the advisory role, providing additional funding to District Board members for the employment of staff with the basic role of the District Boards remaining unchanged. The most ridiculous part is to upgrade the English name of District Board to 'District Council'. Changing the name of 'District Boards' to 'District Councils' is no more than the last resort. While the District Boards are given the grander name of 'Councils', their terms of reference will remain the same. So will the Chinese name.
In fact, from what I have read, I have discovered that most academics gave a different set of views. They are our former colleague, Professor LEUNG Ping-chung of the Chinese University; Professor SUNG Lap-kung of the City University; Mr. CHEUNG Ping-leung, a lecturer and member of the Democratic Party; and Professor WONG Kui-hung of the Chinese University. None of them
Page 250 of 606.
Page 250 of 606
Page 250 of 6
Page 250Page 251