TNAG-2398-FCO40-3485-Hong-Kong-Civil-Service-policy-1992 — Page 39

6.

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are only paid out of every year's general revenue shake the confidence of Hong Kong civil servants at the imminent change of sovereignty. People are asking what happens if

are asking what happens if in future the Govern- ment is in financial difficulty? Could then the political guarantee in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law be honoured without any doubt ?

The British Hong Kong Government however, still argues that it would be difficult to believe the Government shall be. Unable to meet a pension expenditure which represents only 4-5% of Government's overall expenditure in a year.

The Union is strongly of the view that civil service pension is part and parcel of the civil service total pay package. It is Something which civil servants have earned by virtue of their employment, and thus belongs to civil servants. It is a legitimate right of civil servants to expect their employer, the British Hong Kong Government, to safeguard financially the payment of pensions earned under the British rule before handing over its employees to a new employer. The UK, which is the present severight state, is therefore undoubtedly, in the eyes of the 190,000 Hong Kong civil servants, obliged to see the Joint Declaration signed with the PRC be honoured and the long term security of pension payment be protected.

7. It is therefore considered both politically and financially important

at this point in time for both the British and the Chinese Governments to draw up concrete plans on pension safeguards to restore the confidence of civil servants and help stabilize the civil service. To set up a Civil Service Pension Reserve Fund well before 1997, preferably before 1995 as demanded by major civil service organisations, to provide the financial basis for pension payment in case the Government is in financial difficulty can certainly help to achieve this objective.