XN000022-1995-10-12 — Page 42

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Governor: No, perhaps I can just say a little more about the elderly. We have actually increased our spending on programmes for the elderly by about 50%, that's after prices, that's 50% in real terms over the last three years, and so we should have done because the elderly built this community and they deserve well of this community now it's successful. Right across the board, whether you're talking about care and attention homes, whether you're talking about more housing provision, whether you're talking about better health facilities say for example people have to wait less long for a cataract operation. Right across the board we have been trying to develop our programmes, our policies for the elderly including of course support for the elderly financially. We have considerably increased CSSA payments for older people, I think I am right in saying that in the last three years we have actually increased payments for a single elderly person by 26% in real terms. We are prepared to look at more in relation to the review that we've been carrying out of the household expenditure survey, so we do recognise our responsibilities for the elderly. My colleagues in the Social Welfare Department are determined to carry through our extraordinary substantial programme of additional provision, health centres, clinics and so on and they are absolutely committed to that and I sure that we will be able to hit all our targets.

Question (in Chinese) Good morning, Mr Patten, 1 see that in your policy address that there is mention of reducing the waiting time for public housing from seven to five years. I really have doubts about that. Can you really deliver your promise or is it just going to be a bounced cheque, because I have lived in THAs for six years. I am not eligible for public housing yet. Now you say that you will reduce the waiting time from seven to five years but there are actually people who have waited for more than ten years, still they are not re-housed and now you are saying that you are going to reduce it from seven to five years. How is it going to be done?

Governor: Well, we have reduced it so far from nine to seven and we are committed to reducing it from seven to five. It is actually less than that in the New Territories. It is a bigger problem in the urban areas. We are reducing it from seven to five by 2001 and the Housing Authority, Rosanna Wong the Chairman and officials and I are determined to do that. We have got a programme of about one hundred and forty thousand new flats that we're putting in place, and of course we've got our programmes to encourage home ownership as well. As for your own position, I wonder whether you actually had any offers of re-housing, because quite often I've been round I think ten temporary housing areas now and sometimes one finds that people have been made several offers, but they are not getting the ideal one that they sometimes want a new flat in an urban area which is a bit difficult, because there are other people ahead of them in the queue. But if you have got a particular problem which you would like to raise with me, if you write to me I'll see if I can deal with it.