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Wednesday, February 14, 1973
NEW FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR URBAN COUNCIL ANNOUNCED
The Government will put the Urban Council in a healthy financial
position for the next two or three years under the new financial arrangements.
The Financial Secretary, the Hon. C.P. Haddon Cave stressed this
in the Legislative Council today when he moved a motion that under the
Rating Ordinance 1973, the General Rates should be nine per cent and the
Urban Council Rates six per cent of the rateable value of every tenement.
He said the Urban Council White Paper recommended that the Council's
rate would be calculated initially from estimates of net expenditure in the
year preceding the introduction of the new arrangements.
Briefly, he explained, the calculation of the Council's initial
rate was based on the following main elements:
*
The personal emoluments of the Urban Services Department
staff;
The annual recurrent expenditure and other charges of the
department;
Special expenditure:
Cost of services provided by other Government departments ; and
Expenditure by the Council on capital works.
These five elements would, for the year 1973-74, result in a
gross expenditure of about $240 million. Deducting the estimated fee income
of $35 million, this would reach a net expenditure of $205 million.
The Financial Secretary pointed out that the estimated yield from
a 15 per cent rate in the coming fiscal year in the urban area was $516 million.
/And the