XN000022-1995-02-14 — Page 5

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Transcript of Governor's question and answer session

Following is the transcript of the question and answer session of the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, at the Hong Kong Council of Social Service meeting today (Tuesday):

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Question 1: I raise the question that Mr Chris Patten, has promised in 1992, of your Policy Address that you would settle the problem of the hostels of the mentally handicapped but actually in fact the speed of the setting up the day activity centre and hostel is so slow that I would like to quote an example of ---. In 1994 the Social Welfare Department began to subvent projects but the primary base is not complete. In 1994, February and this department has promised to give the project to us in this last year but in fact after a series of follow-up actions and the project only September, 1994. So there are six months slippage here and ---.

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So are you confident that you will complete, you will practice your promise before 1997 to settle the case of the mentally handicapped? So I would like you to answer this question. Thanks.

Governor: The problem goes wider than the mentally handicapped. Let me be as candid as possible. When we announced what amounted to a five year agenda for dealing with a number of Hong Kong's remaining areas of social need in 1992, we said that we would report each year on the progress that we made and we've been faithfully doing that. So we provide you with the bullets to shoot at us. I think it is extremely important that we demonstrate where we're making progress and where we're not because unless we do that I don't think we'll have the encouragement and the incentive to make up for failures in some areas.

If we look right across the board at that agenda that we set out in 1992, the area where we have had most difficulty is in the provision of facilities, particularly facilities for people with handicap. Now there are one or two reasons for that which don't redound greatly to the credit of the community. We know what they are and we know that we have to tackle them with public education but firmness and determination. But there are other problems as well, problems that we've had in finding, particularly for rental, the facilities that are required for day centres, for hostels and so on. We're going to propose what I hope will be some ways of tackling those problems in our White Paper on Rehabilitation in a few weeks' time. It still remains our determination to meet the targets which we set in 1992. I realise that we're going to be judged by that but we're obviously going to have to look at new ways, at different ways of getting the premises that we need in order to meet those objectives.