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Date:
Time:
Reporter:
28.11.86
8.30
PMS
12.30
the thing, that the Secretary was not of the view that this case fitted fully within that policy, you know, and that was his view. It doesn't happen to be mine, nor the Director of Audit's, but it
was his view.
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CHAIRMAN:
I see.
MR CHEONG:
Mr Chairman, that is precisely the point that I would like to bring up. It was said in paragraph 59 that the Secretary for Lands and Works was of the view that the project
in question should be regarded as a major redevelopment proposal and was not the sort of case covered by the policy. So by virtue
the then of this particular sentence, you know, it is not that
Secretary for Lands and Works was not following policy, it was his
view that this was not
SLW:
MR CHEONG:
It was outwith the policy.
Yes, outside the policy. Now in this
respect, could you comment on the degree of discretion that a head of Branch that could have been made, you know, do you have any leeway
22 whatsoever in interpreting policy and so on and so forth?
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SLW:
Oh, in interpretation of policy the head
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of Branch, he must interpret policy. I mean somebody has got to 26 interpret policy, it is his most policies in fact under which a
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head of Branch operates are those which have originally been proposed 28 by his own Branch. In this case through a kind of, the course of
reorganisation and history. But most cases you are in fact dealing
with your own policy so you are likely to be the expert on it anyway.
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MR CHEONG:
So would you say that this is a perhaps
you've just mentioned that you probably may not agree with this
34 particular view, would you say that this is a difference of inter-
35 pretation of policy rather than a blatant attempt not to follow policy?
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