XN000022-1995-10-25 — Page 28

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Renovation of 15,500 old public housing flats

The following is a question by the Hon Sin Chung-kai and a written reply by the Secretary for Housing, Mr Dominic Wong, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

It has been announced that $4 billion will be spent on renovating about 15,500 relatively old public housing flats. On this basis, the average cost of renovating such a flat will be in excess of $250,000. Will the Government inform this Council of the names of the housing estates in which the 15,500 flats are located, and whether the renovation work is cost effective?

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Answer:

Mr President,

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In his 1995 Policy Address, the Governor referred to our commitment to spend about $4 billion to renovate some 15,500 older flats and to maintain the quality of existing public housing flats. Thus, the amount covers a range of improvement and maintenance programmes.

Under the vacant flat refurbishment programme, $342 million will be spent in 1995-96 to renovate 15,500 flats. The average cost of refurbishment is about $22,000 per flat, and not $250,000 as stated in the question. The programme covers flats in almost all of the 155 public rental housing estates in the territory. Works orders have already been issued for about 5,900 flats. The names of the estates in which they are located are given in the Annex. Renovation of the remaining 9,600 flats will be completed by March 1996.

Contractors undertaking the refurbishment work are selected by open tender. The lowest bid in each batch is normally accepted. The Housing Department supervises contractors to ensure that work is carried out in accordance with the contract terms and to the satisfaction of the Department, and also that expenditure is within budget.