- 16.
—
The administration has never made a decision that the It has always been our intention to consult the Chief Executive (Designate) on the provision of office accommodation to meet his requirements. While it would not have been possible for us to consult the Chief Executive (Designate) until he had been selected, it would clearly be desirable if we could have identified potentially suitable accommodation ready for his consideration as soon as possible after his selection. The office premises at Edinburgh Tower This simply emerged as such an a possible option after we had considered other office premises available in the market at that time, having regard to location, accessibility, size and quality.
We consulted Mr Tung on 28 December 1996 on the possibility of using the space at Edinburgh Tower as his new office. We then arranged a site visit two days later to let Mr Tung see for himself whether the space could fully meet his requirements. After Mr Tung had indicated that the premises would not meet all his requirements we immediately identified alternatives for his consideration, including the premises in Asia Pacific Finance Tower which he has now accepted.
The Edinburgh Tower premises were leased in November for an initial period of three years to provide tribunal accommodation for the Judiciary and that remains their purpose. They and we now intend on grounds of urgency to make them available for use by the Commission of Inquiry into the Garley Building tragedy. As rental levels are commercially sensitive information, I would prefer not to disclose the actual rental agreed. I can, however, assure members that it is at a discount to the current market rate., and that no public funds have been wasted in the exercise.
To date the works that have been carried out in Edinburgh Tower consist of basic building services such as partitioning, electrical work and air conditioning. In order to accommodate the requirements of the Garley Building Inquiry, some repartitioning is necessary, but the cost of this is minimal. Overall the fit-out works for the Edinburgh Tower premises is near the lower end of the range of costs that we normally expect to incur for works of this type. These works are essential to all office accommodation regardless of use.
End