TNAG-1726-FCO40-2439-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 226

NO.5

QUESTION NO

MR.CHUNG :

Council

to whom

Sir, could the Secretary inform this these management companies responsible

are

and what measures are being taken by the Housing Authority to ensure that the opinion and suggestions by residents of these estates on management problems are heeded and considered?, SECRETARY FOR LANDS AND WORKS:

Sir, the arrangement is between the Housing Authority and the company undertaking the management, so the property management company is responsible ultimately to the Housing Authority. On the second point, I understand that the Housing Department staff are still involved very much in this scheme; they are supervising it, and they are putting people out in the field to see how the pilot scheme has been getting on, so I think that the Housing Authority has been monitoring this and they have been getting feedback both from the property management agents as well as from the owners. I feel that this probably is providing sufficient feedback.

MR. YEUNG:

Sir, having regard to the encouraging

and satisfactory performance of the company involved in the pilot scheme, how long does the Government expect to take before it is satisfied that the owners of those estates are able to take over the responsibility for managing their own estates?

SECRETARY FOR LANDS AND WORKS: Sir, this involves some crystal ball gazing. I think it is impossible to say how long it will take. I have stated in my reply that it is the authority's intention to hand over responsibility to owners, and I am sure that given the success of this scheme and the expansion of the scheme to other estates later this year, the authority would wish to hand over management to the owners as soon as it is practicable to do so. I think the authority must be quite satisfied, however, the owners are quite capable of undertaking this work. add, Sir, that in addition to the four estates which are going to be brought into this scheme shortly, there is a possibility that some of the new estates coming on stream this year may go straight into this system with a view to the owners taking over management as soon as possible.

that

I might