TNAG-1611-FCO40-2214-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1987 — Page 25

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MR. EDWARD HO : Will the Government inform this Council

whether the 21 new posts were created as a result of

Mr. SOHMEN's question?

FINANCIAL SECRETARY : No, Sir!

Mr. SOHMEN : Sir, I presume the Financial Secretary is

aware that before the stock market crash the stamp duty

collected from transactions in the stock market in any one

day occasionally exceeded the

exceeded the total annual

annual budget of the

Office of the Commissioner for Securities. Would he not

agree that this suggests that the facilities put in place

to supervise the markets were totally out of line with the

volume of business that had to be policed?

FINANCIAL SECRETARY : Sir, as Mr. SOHMEN knows, we do not

hypothecate general revenue. We were, of course, very

grateful for the large increase of revenue from stock

exchange activities but I think it would have been wrong

to have devoted all that revenue to staffing the Office of

the Commissioner for Securities.