TNAG-1727-FCO40-2440-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 89

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and so concerning the 1988/89 budget which the Financial

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Secretary and his talented staff have spent months writing, I would like to recommend it to all those who care about Hong Kong for reading. I am a layman in economics and so shall not comment on the budget in

6 technical terms, I will speak on a number of principles.

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8 [First of all on priorities of the deployment of resources

9 and its effectiveness. Colleagues in this Council come

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from all walks of life and they represent different levels of society. They may not have the same views on priorities as far as the distribution of resources are concerned so, before the Government makes a decision 14 · on distribution resources perhaps, it should take

certain steps, such as

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as/

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conduct consultation exercises

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or read market research reports, or listen to experts

test order to ensure that they get the priority right least

there be public dissatisfaction or inconvenience. To take one example, expenditure in transport 1983/84 accounted for of total expenditure, 1984/85 6.2 per cent, 1985/86 4.7, 1986787 4.4% and 4.9% for 1987/88. In this

bor cent period, expenditure in transport has fallen by 30% in real terms. In the past years, reduction in expenditure in transport has perhaps some direct or indirect relationship 25 with the trouble we have had in the Cross-Harbour Tunnel

and the Lion Rock Tunnel and also the congestion during

peak hours in the Mass Transit Railway

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We understand that no programme of resource distribution 30 can satisfy the wishes of everyone in Hong Kong,

but a government that understands the public, that is representative and down to earth should not find it too difficult to satisfy specifically the wishes of the 84 majority of the public and be accepted by the public.. NY 35 Nofone

wants to see any wastage of public funds and that when achieving a particular purpose a reasonable

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