1972 — Page 134

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I. Financing

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

The Governor has said in the Legislative Council recently about the three priorities, i.e. Ten Years' Plan for Public Housing, the Development of Technical and Secondary Education and the Social Welfare. I have read his speech with great interest and admiration. It is indeed a farsighted policy of the Government. In his speech, the Governor did not go into details concerning how the money or where the money should come from. If the money would come from those which Government would look after them, then it is probably not the original idea of the Governor. On the other hand, if the Government would increase the rate of taxation, it would probably affect adversely to the prosperity of Hong Kong. I should think that the money should come from surplus of Hong Kong Government and if there is still in need of more money then we can transfer a part of our deposit from London to finance it.

CHAIRMAN (In English):-Mr. Hu, is that your best Cantonese?

MR. HU (In English):-I think so. I asked my clerk to listen to my Cantonese and he said he could understand it. He said it is very good Cantonese (Laughter) although one or two words were not clear.

MR. SALES (In English):-Sir, it is perfectly intelligible to me.

MR. HU (Continued in Cantonese):-I personally should think that the future development plan of public housing should not be financed by those who are now living in the public housing. They can only be called to be responsible to pay for reasonable rent increase including the cost of maintenance and the future replacement of the building they are now living.

II. Time

In the last two years, we are a little bit lag behind of building our public housing. This is one of the reasons why the rent in the private sector has been rising so sharply. At the moment, the salary people cannot afford to live in a domestic accommodation of private section. Therefore, the public housing should be completed as soon as possible. The future 2 or 3 years are very critical time. I hope that the Government can see their way to help those people. Because of the rising of the rent in the private section and also because of the rising of the living cost generally, the present yard-stick of $500 per month as the limit for a family's qualification to apply for public housing is probably out of date. In my view, the income of a person's application for the public housing should be counted on each person's income instead of a family's income. I just give you an example, in a family of 9 persons including 3 children, then if the family's monthly income is below $585, they can be eligible for public assistance, but under the present system, this family is not eligible for the application of public housing. This is just to show that the income limit for the present public housing should be reconsidered. Again, about 1964 White Paper concerning resettlement, I urge that White Paper should be reconsidered to cope with the present Government policy. In particular that the resite areas should be abolished after the present people in resite areas have been resettled. In doing so, we alleviate the hardship of the very poor echelon of our population and to avoid their further financial loss.

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

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This has

III. Traffic

The present traffic congestion and confusion in my view is mainly because of man-made. The Government on the one hand has spent a great deal of money to build a lot of flyovers which in fact have improved our road system. But on the other hand, the two bus companies have been substituted by the public light buses, put our traffic into confusion. Even if Government now agrees to build the underground railways, we should still wait for 8 or 10 years before the underground railways can be used. In this interim period, Government must think of ways and means to cope with the traffic conditions. I venture to say that to build more flyovers in the proper places and to improve the services of the two bus companies are probably the practical consideration.

IV. Management of Resettlement Estates

The public housing scheme should in broad sense be considered as a social policy. It is therefore understandable that to manage the resettlement estates in which there are living more than one million inhabitants is not an easy matter. Furthermore, because of the over-crowdedness, many social problems have risen. It is indeed much commendable that the Government is now proposing either to ameliorate or to rebuild the present old types of resettlement estates. To improve the present resettlement estates is probably easier than to rebuild them and may save some time. For example, if we could supply stronger light in the night for all the resettlement estates, it may assure more safety to the inhabitants in the night time. Again, the Government can consider that the ground floors of the resettlement estates to be changed to the hawker bazaars and the first floors to be resettlement shops. This consideration is more appropriate to be applied to the old types of resettlement estates. If this policy could be proved to be workable, then no more hawkers can be hawking outside the resettlement estates and the question of insufficiency of resettlement shops can also be solved.

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