TNAG-1731-FCO40-2444-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 158

DRAFT

Translation

DRAFT SPEECH BY HON TAM YIU CHUNGTM

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 25-5-88

?nsumeceniosis (Compensation) Ordinancè

MR. TAN (in Cantonese):

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In view of the growing surplus of the Pneumoconiosis Compensation Fund, the authorities concerned have proposed to further reduce the rate of levy for the Fund from the current

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0.05 to 0.02$. The continued growth of surplus is attributed per cent

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to a steady income and the insignificant increase on the compensation payment, thus obliterating the need of too vast a reserve in the fund.

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However, I do have doubts about a further reduction in the rate of levy. First, the Fund is financed by a levy on the value of quarry products and on construction works. the Fund's statements of income and expenditure over the years, we can detect a direct relationship between the fall or rise of its income and the booming or otherwise of the construction industry. Obviously, if the development of the construction industry is unsatisfactory, the level of the fund's income will neither be gratifying. On the other hand, pneumoconiosis is an occupational disease with an incubational period. Its symptons may remain unnoticed or ten or twenty, or even forty years.

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Thus, it may be too optimistic to set the trend of expenditure on the basis of the apparent number of cases and the trend of compensation payments. What I am worrying is that the emergence of the effects of the disease is a natural process, the timing of which cannot be adjusted to coincide with the year of a construction boom. Thus, a vast reserve in the fund should be the best hedge against rainy days in future. Perhaps, the Government would say that the rate of levy can be

raised when necessary.

Nevertheless it is all too natural that

a reduction in charges is easily acceptable while any increase

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