Date:
Time:
26.11.86.
8.30
PMO
S
12.15
Reporter:
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CHAIRMAN:
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RG:
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the representative from the Economic Services Branch, this legislation was unlikely to be enacted until towards the end of 1981, if then. Although it was recognised that the staff would need some preliminary training, it was felt by Finance Branch and Civil Service Branch representatives that at least the majority of the clerical, typing and minor staff, would not be needed for some considerable time and consequently they supported the creation of only fourteen of the twenty nine posts applied for. If this recommendation is accepted by the Registrar General, fifteen posts will remain within his ceiling which could be used for microfilming."
I see. Do you have any further questions ?
Could I ask a question, paragraph 112, of the Registrar General.
It is an amazing story. Are the documents stored at Kowloon East
Government Offices now being destroyed ?
Yes, they have.
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CHAIRMAN : I see.
a headache, because they had a fire ?
But the other one, you would not have
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RG:
The decision was taken out of my hands.
Perhaps
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there is a point, sir, that I should mention on that and perhaps
it was not made clear to the Director of Audit and that is, under
the Land Registration Regulations, the discretion of when and how
to destroy these public land records, which are public land records
of Hong Kong, is conferred by the legislature on the Land Officer.
That's me. If I destroy them too early, I have to take the responsibility for that.
It won't be the Director of Audit's fault,
it will be mine. So I think that is the exercise of a statutory
discretion by the statutory authority concerned. So I am not sure it is an appropriate subject for audit at all. Certainly, in the
legal sense. But of course the question can be asked, why didn't
the Land Officer destroy them earlier and save something like
$220,000 in rent, but that is a subjective decision which belongs
to the Land Officer and the decision that I took was to destroy most
of them, last month in fact, but in fact I have also decided to
retain about 170,000 Memorials which are the Memorials from 1844 up
I consider them to be useful and historical land records
to 1945.
ds]
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