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Transcript of Chief Secretary's media session
Following is the transcript of the media session by the Chief Secretary, Mrs Anson Chan, after attending the Canadian Chamber of Commerce luncheon today (Friday):
Question: Mrs Chan, can you comment on the high public cost of keeping an empty holiday home?
CS: I am not sure there is any public cost because there is no security: The quarter is just locked up. I accept that we can probably make better use of the facility. I haven't actually found time since I took up the Chief Secretary job to call on the new facility and I don't, in the foreseeable future, intend to use it. So I've asked for an examination to be made as to whether the bungalow might be made available for other civil servants as a holiday home. And if not, there might be other uses, but I certainly intend to make better use of the facility.
Question: But people like rooftop dwellers are obviously feeling very angry when they read about these things, when they took up their things.
CS: Well, bearing in mind that this is, I believe, originally I haven't looked at the background of this bungalow. The bungalow actually was used by Sir David Ford. And, as I said, since I took up the Chief Secretary post, I haven't used it. But it was previously actually a store room.
Question: Sorry, you read an statement in Cantonese. I didn't catch that. What was that involved when you came out and you spoke in Cantonese?
CS: Oh, it was about the burglary. I was saying, first of all, thank you for your concern, that I haven't had time to go out to use the facility, that I don't intend, in the to see whether there are foreseeable future, to use the facility. And I'm asking for
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better uses for the facility, for example, as a holiday home for other civil servants.
End/Friday, January 20, 1995