CO129-599-2 Salaries Commission- 1947 Report 1-1-1947 - 31-12-1949 — Page 25

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Principle of expatriation pay as applied to Hong Kong.

39.

We take it that the principle of expatriation pay envisaged by the Colonial Office, as applied to Hong Kong, implies at least the following olcments:-

(1)

(11)

(iii)

(iv)

that an officer holding certain indispensablo qualifications is essential for appointment to the service of the Hong Kong Government;

that no such person with the requisito qualifiertions is available for local recruitment;

that in consequence of (1) and (ii) above it becomes necessary to recruit an officer from soo place outside Hong Kong; and

that the place from which such an officer is so recruited is so distant, and from the point of view of climate, mode of living, social amenities and customs is so different from Hong Kong, that the appointment of such an officer involves an "uprooting" from his normal family surroundings.

Recommendation.

40.

We accept the principle of expatriation pay as enunciated in the preceding paragraph.

General observations.

41.

Before attempting the difficult task of suggesting a definition of an expatriate officer wo fool it necessary to make a few general observations:-

(i)

(ii)

In our view, no officer, of whatever nationality or race, who is locally recruited, should normally be entitled to expatriation pay. We can, however, imagine a case in which a person possesses special qualifications not otherwise available in the Colony, whose services it is essential for Government to secure and who, but for the fact that he happone to be available in Hong sung by reason of some work in which he has been engaged or for some other reason, would have been qualified as an expatriate officer. In such an exceptional case we consider that Government should be at

liberty to engage such a person on terms which would involve expatriation pay if his services cannot otherwise be secured;

we consider that, in order to avoid a sense of resentment at any apparent diccrimination in the Government service, it is of vitel importance that the principle of expatriation pay should be applied strictly and fairly to the whole service. Accordingly, whorec officers under their terms of service are entitled to privilegos appropriate to an expatriate officer, such as home leave, but on the principle stated are not qualified as expatriato officers, we consider that they should be given the option of either continuing