CONFIDENTIAL
elected members of Legco if there was a consensus for this in Legco. Mr Kaufman would visit Hong Kong within a month of taking office to determine this. Yaxley doubted whether there was, in fact, such a consensus. There was also talk of replacing existing appointed members of Exco and Legco. Yaxley doubted that this was possible in most cases, since the people concerned had fixed term appointments. Henry Keswick (not, presumably, present) believed that a new Governor could shuffle the pack as he wished.
6.
Yaxley
Yaxley's most interesting remark was about the bridge contract, which arose in the context of who was sensitive about what (in this case, Michael Leung and his responsibilities) and of the need to avoid surprises. said that it was his understanding that the process of whittling down the field had already taken place, and that an announcement would be made quite soon that the Korean bid had been eliminated on the grounds of technical capability, and the Japanese one as too high, leaving the other two to fight it out. The final decision lay with the Central Tender Board, chaired by K Y Yeung. We could ask him about timing and procedure. He recalled that from his own spell as Chairman of the CTB, its decisions were only rarely even reported to the Governor. In this case, there might be some prior discussion by the Chief Secretary's Airport Project Committee. It might also be reported to Legco. Whether he is informed on these matters I do not know, but he seemed quite certain of his ground on the Korean question.
SH Broadbent
CONFIDENTIAL
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