XN000022-1995-07-19 — Page 38

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Accounting

On the advice of accounting experts in the Bills Committee, I shall also be amending Clause 32(2) to reflect the fact that the profit or loss account and cashflow statement, which forms part of the statement of accounts, cover the whole financial year rather than only the position as at the end of the financial year.

Auditor

Members were concerned that the Bill should safeguard the independence of the external auditor of the Airport Authority. To put the matter beyond doubt, I shall be moving an amendment to Clause 32(4) to provide that the auditor shall not be a member or an employee of the Airport Authority, or a member of its Audit Committee. The amendment will also restrict the appointment by the Airport Authority of a partnership or company as auditor, if one of their partners or directors is a member or an employee of the Authority, or a member of its Audit Committee.

Business Plan

The Bill provides that the Authority shall send a five year financial plan to the Financial Secretary. I shall be moving an amendment to Clause 33 to require the Authority also to send to the Financial Secretary a business plan for the coming five years, instead of only the next financial year as currently specified.

In addition I shall also be moving a number of purely technical amendments which covers drafting, textual and other changes.

Committee stage amendments proposed by the Hon Albert Chan

The Hon Albert Chan has given notice that he intends to move four Committee Stage amendments. These are not endorsed by the Bills Committee as a whole and I have to say that I have problems with them and that I am afraid I shall be asking members not to support them. He also commented, and I think also other members, and if I have misquoted them, I apologise, on the fear of the monopolistic nature of an Airport Authority. Let me just assure Members that when we look at services provided at our new airport, we shall be adopting as open, as pro-competitive, and as pro-choice, a range of operations as we can encourage so that members of the public and travelling citizens would have a wide range of services to choose from. Airlines also would benefit from the fact that they would not only have to work with one set of companies providing the different essential services such as maintenance, catering, and so on.