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2.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
489
There should not be any delay or shelving of our capital works projects. The Department's Finance Division has recently submitted a proposal to cut expenditure. I hope you will give your consent to it.
Mr. Chairman, I hope Members will support Mr. Chan Choi-hi's motion. "We also want to tell the public and central government that we know how to manage our finances. Even though we may not get an ideal amount of funding, we can still manage properly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. PAO PING-WING (in Cantonese):-In fact, the original motion by Mr. Chan Choi-hi and the amended motion by Mr. Wu Chi-wai are more or less the same in meaning. One of the points raised by Ms. Ada WONG in asking support for the original motion by Mr. Chan is that she is not in support of asking government for extra funding as suggested by Mr. Wu.
However, in Mr. Wu's amended motion and speech, he did not actually mention the increase of revenue. He just proposed to seek necessary funds. I am pointing this out to suggest that maybe we are not interpreting the matter in a suitable perspective. On the other hand, Mr. CHAN's motion is somewhat misleading. When I read it, I thought we had already given up negotiations with government on the financial arrangement for the Council. The impression I got was that we had surrendered. I find that it is more suitable to follow the approach mentioned in Mr. Wu's amended motion in continuing to seek more funding from government.
On a fundamental point, Mr. Wu's amendment differs from my own budgeting principle. Mr. Wu makes 'based on the needs of the citizens and maintenance of the Council's level of service' a principle. I think that is a little bit dangerous because we may not be able to fully meet the needs of citizens and we have to meet needs in accordance with our capabilities. In principle, therefore, I support Mr. CHAN's original motion to work out a budget to keep expenditure within the limit of revenue'. So, Mr. Chairman, if we can clarify that Mr. Chan's motion is not one of surrender, but one of actively studying into exploring revenue sources and cutting cost as well as seeking necessary funds from government, I will support him. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. JOSEPH Chan Yuk-sut (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, I think the original motion is not one of surrender as suggested by Mr. Pao. It is not so much stated there, because we know clearly that in the letter of reply from the Secretary for the Treasury, there is the commitment to allocate (meaning without specific action to seek) additional funding should the Council meet with a deficit. So the amended motion is unnecessarily complicating matters, doing something unnecessary, (i.e., take off trousers to break wind)
We should abide by the principle of living within our means, explore new revenue sources and trim down our expenditure. That is correct. However, we should go from the designed budget of 97/98 ....
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Page 445 of 498
2.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
489
There should not be any delay or shelving of our capital works projects. The Department's Finance Division has recently submitted a proposal to cut expenditure. I hope you will give your consent to it.
Mr. Chairman, I hope Members will support Mr. Chan Choi-hi's motion. "We also want to tell the public and central government that we know how to manage our finances. Even though we may not get an ideal amount of funding, wwe can still manage properly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. PAO PING-WING (in Cantonese):-In fact, the original motion by Mr. 'CHAN Choi-hi and the amended motion by Mr. Wu Chi-wai are more or less the same in meaning. One of the points raised by Ms. Ada WONG in asking :support for the original motion by Mr. Chan is that she is not in support of
asking government for extra funding as suggested by Mr. Wu.
However, in Mr. Wu's amended motion and speech, he did not actually mention the increase of revenue. He just proposed to seek necessary funds. I am pointing this out to suggest that maybe we are not interpreting the matter in a suitable perspective. On the other hand, Mr. CHAN's motion is somewhat misleading. When I read it, I thought we had already given up negotiations with government on the financial arrangement for the Council. The impression I got was that we had surrendered. I find that it is more suitable to follow the approach mentioned in Mr. Wu's amended motion in continuing to seek more funding from government.
On a fundamental point. Mr. Wu's amendment differs from my own budgeting principle. Mr. Wu makes 'based on the needs of the citizens and maintenance of the Council's level of service' a principle. I think that is a little bit dangerous because we may not be able to fully meet the needs of citizens and we have to meet needs in accordance with our capabilities. In principle. therefore, I support Mr. CHAN's original motion to work out a budget to keep expenditure within the limit of revenue'. So, Mr. Chairman, if we can clarify that Mr. Chan's motion is not one of surrender, but one of actively studying into exploring revenue sources and cutting cost as well as seeking necessary funds from government, I will support him. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. JOSEPH Chan Yuɛk-sut (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, I think the original motion is not one of surrender as suggested by Mr. Pao. It is not so much stated there, because we know clearly that in the letter of reply from the Secretary for the Treasury, there is the commitment to allocate (meaning without out specific action to seek) additional funding should the Council meet with a deficit. So the amended motion is unnecessarily complicating matters, doing something unnecessary, (i.e, take off trousers to break wind)
We should abide by the principle of living within our means, explore new revenue sources and trim down our expenditure. That is correct. However, we should go from the designed budget of 97/98 ....
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