1979 — Page 114

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purely what appears on the agenda, you may turn her into a very poorly paid civil servant.

With these remarks, I support the motion.

MR. AUGUSTINE S. K. CHUNG (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I wish to take this opportunity of expressing in a nutshell some of the observations which I have made in the course of my work within the jurisdiction of the Council in the last 10 months and I respectfully invite my colleagues and members of the public to enlighten me further or even correct me, if necessary, on the issues raised herein.

1.

Finance

(a) As per area and population, Hong Kong has perhaps more multi-millionaires than many other parts of the world. This is because Hong Kong has offered its people better money-making opportunities and lower tax obligations than many other parts of the world. Many of these multi-millionaires may be quite willing to contribute more to the welfare of the society than we have previously thought. This can be reflected in some of the recent charity drives when millions of dollars were raised in a matter of days. If they can be given more opportunities of contributing financially to some of the Council's projects, such as parks and stadiums, we may find that they may welcome such opportunities, especially when we are prepared to name a park or stadium or part thereof after them. This will also reduce some of the inherent hostility and jealousy of the poor against the rich and reduce the gap between the two strata.

(b) At present, fines from illegal hawkers, litter bugs, and other offenders of the laws implemented by the Urban Council go entirely to the Treasury of the Central Government, although the work of implementation and enforcement of such laws is carried out at the expense of the Council. It is a case of all work and no pay for the Council. If this matter can be rectified, the Council will have an additional income of at least several million dollars a year to finance many of the Council's projects.

(c) It is the intention of the Council to build many more markets not only to meet the increase in demand of the population but also to resettle as many of the hawkers and cooked food stalls as possible. However, such ambition is handicapped by the shortage of funds. The solution, as I can see it, lies heavily on the willingness of the hawkers and cooked food stalls to contribute to the building costs of such markets. I have made intensive inquiries on the willingness of the hawkers and found that most of them were willing to make such a contribution. It was pointed out that an initial payment of $5,000 to $15,000 and monthly installments of $200 to $1,000 were within their means. If we have, say, 50,000 deserving hawkers contributing thereto, we will have $750 million initial contribution plus $50 million monthly contribution, which will certainly be a substantial contribution to our markets and bazaars projects. I hope my finding here can provide some guidelines for the Council to work on for raising funds to expedite such development.

Hawkers (Street Traders)

(a) Whether we like it or not, hawkers appear to be a social need not only on the side of the hawkers but also on the side of the section of the consumer population within the low-income bracket. I sympathize with the position of those hawkers who have no alternatives but to choose hawking as their occupation. However, my sympathy does not extend to those who are capable of taking up other jobs but only try to take advantage of the rent-free trade. The Council's policy is to sever the hawking occupation from social welfare. On the face of it, it is a must. However, when we delve into the problem deeper, we find it impossible to do so. The reasons are obvious:

(i) Theoretically, hawkers are those who are for various reasons incapacitated from taking up normal jobs and are also unable financially or otherwise to pay for the rent of ordinary business premises and operate a business establishment on any scale larger than the size of a fixed-pitch stall. While poor people with housing problems have been given help in housing resettlement out of public funds (a kind of social welfare), I do not see why those with problems of making a decent living otherwise than by hawking cannot receive our tolerance or help in respect of their breadwinning device, as long as such devices are within the acceptable limit of the society, although our doing so may be classified as 'social service'. If we should sever the element of social welfare, the rent-free hawkers should be completely banned from streets altogether and no tolerance should be given. However, this is certainly not the Council's view.

(ii) That being the case, we have to set a standard somewhere to screen off those undeserving hawkers in the same way as we screen off the undeserving applicants for housing resettlement; otherwise, there will be no end to the list of hawkers in our streets.

(iii) If our standard is one of 'first come, first served' or 'as a matter of fact' for the existing hawkers so as to close the class of hawkers at this stage, we may be doing some unnecessary favor to the undeserving and tie the Council's hands from helping some future deserving hawkers.

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