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Answer:
Mr President,
(a)
(b)
The Container Transportation Employees General Union (CTEGU) was permitted to use a site in front of Container Terminal No. 7 at Kwai Chung for temporary parking of container trucks on an exceptional basis. The site in question is reserved for use as an emergency "vehicle holding area" when there is traffic congestion at Kwai Chung container port. It is locked up and is opened only when it is required to ease traffic congestion. Between August and October 1994, four container truck parking sites under Short Term Tenancies in Kwai Tsing were closed down to make way for Airport Core Projects (ACP). As a result, there was an acute shortage of parking spaces for container vehicles. On 29 September 1994, following negotiations between CTEGU and the relevant government departments, it was agreed that:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
the CTEGU should be permitted to use the site on a temporary basis and without charge with effect from 1 October 1994 for parking container trucks. The site could accommodate about 200 trucks;
the CTEGU would be responsible for the management of the site and required to provide the licence numbers and driver details for the vehicles within the site; and
the CTEGU had to return the site to the Government once a short term tenancy of a new parking site at Stonecutter's Island was ready. It was expected at the time that this temporary arrangement would last about a month only. However, the tender of the new site was not completed until the end of December 1994 due to unforeseen boundary problems.
The temporary arrangements mentioned above were made on emergency traffic grounds, taking into account the very tight ACP Programme and the need to address the problem of shortage of parking spaces during the interim period.