KONG
nsible for the those for rent ship Scheme. ing and there decided in six irmen and an by the Hous-
civil servants, rrent income tenants in the financed by hese must be also required s free of gov- management construction decides how ch year,
and e New Terri-
ority and the hore detail in
keting Orga- Authority but cations is the each case by t which does the transport s which they ddition they es for resale
3 men for the Iren's educa- nanced by a ent for fish). zations, with nd Fisheries
I from direct
9
the Trade
e Consumer
promotional nary public. Hong Kong investigates by their own the general
THE PUBLIC SERVICE
107
government ruling that subvented organizations must not provide con- ditions of service more favourable than those in government. A few civil servants may be employed on secondment when a corporation is first set up; for example, the first two administrative secretaries of the Consum- er Council were government administrative officers. These organizations are each headed by a chairman who is not a civil servant and are under a board nominated by government which includes officials but has an un- official majority. The Governor has the right to give directions to these Councils, but this power would only be exercised in extreme circum- stances. Apart from small sums from sales of publications, charges to clients, and affiliation fees, these organizations receive practically all their income from government subventions.
The two universities, the two polytechnics, Baptist College, and the Examinations Authority are all statutory corporations in roughly the same position as the four Councils just mentioned. In order to safeguard their academic independence, the first five receive their government funding through the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee, which is interposed between government and the institutions and which negotiates every three years the size and allocation of the block grants from government in the light of the institutions' plans or hopes for ex- pansion and the government's estimate of what can be afforded and what is needed. The Examinations Authority organizes the setting and marking of the main public examinations for Hong Kong's secondary schools. The bulk of its revenue comes from the fees paid by candidates, but it also receives a government subvention.
Next there are the statutory corporations which engage in commer- cial activities in actual or potential competition with the private sector. Their equity is completely owned by government and the Governor has the power to give general directives to them. The oldest of these is the Export Credit Insurance Corporation, set up in 1966 with a share capital of HK$20 million, all provided by government, and with a gov- ernment guarantee of its liabilities which was raised to HK$4,200 mil- lion in 1985. The Corporation markets its services on a commercial basis and is required to operate so as to cover its costs, taking one year with another. It receives no subvention from government.
The Mass Transit Railway Corporation was set up by ordinance in 1974 to build and manage the underground railway system. It received an initial capital sum of HK$800 million from government and almost all the land needed for construction free of payment, though formally gov- ernment received shares in the Corporation in exchange. Most of the finance needed for the construction has been raised by fixed-interest loans from international banks and finance houses, and the original in- tention was that all this should be repaid out of operating profits by the early 1990s. However, the cost of building the extensions to the original system (the line to Tsuen Wan and the Island Line) imposed heavy costs on the Corporation, and ever since the first section was opened to the public in 1980, its revenue has been insufficient to cover its operating costs and pay the interest on its loans. Consequently the government
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