XN000022-1996-12-18 — Page 39

25 -

Manpower of KCRC- West Rail Division

Following is a question by the Hon Lo Suk-ching and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport, Mr Gordon Siu, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

It is learnt that the Managing Board of Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC) has endorsed the plan to reduce 50% of the staff of its West Rail Division (WRD), and that only about a dozen out of the one hundred or so employees retained are local staff. However, despite this reduction, the monthly expenditure of the WRD still comes to about $20,000,000. This has given rise to public concern about whether the number of expatriate staff and the monthly expenditure of the WRD are still on the high side. In this connection, does the Government know:

(a)

(b)

(c)

having regard to the fact that only about a dozen local employees of the WRD are retained, whether there is any impact on the Division in the long term in such areas as technology transfer, localisation and communication with the Chinese side; if so, what the remedial measures

are:

whether the monthly expenditure of the WRD is spent entirely on monitoring consultancy contracts which amount to an average monthly cost of about $20,000,000; if so, of the reasons for this 1:1 ratio of supervision fees which differs from the normal ratio of 1:5;

if the answer to (b) is in the negative, whether part of the monthly expenditure is spent on commissioning the study on Phase II projects; if

So,

(

(ii)

of the respective percentages of the amounts spent on monitoring consultancy contracts and commissioning the study on Phase II projects; and

whether it is appropriate to commence the study on Phase II projects at the present stage?