ENG-1992 — Page 203

HOUSING

Loan Scheme. It acts as the government's agent to clear land, prevent and control squatting and maintain improvements to squatter areas.

It is made up of members appointed by the Governor for a two-year term.

It is chaired by a non-official and supported by 20 other non-official members and four official members whose responsibilities have a bearing on housing matters. There are also 33 non-official committee members who sit on one or more of the various committees which deal with particular housing issues. Many members of the authority and of the committees also serve the Hong Kong community as executive, legislative, urban or regional councillors, or as members of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk, district boards, area committees and mutual aid committees and other government boards and committees.

Together they have a broad range of experience and representation in community service and professional knowledge in certain areas of activity, and are able to apply a broad and critical perspective in determining public housing policies.

In April 1991, the authority held its first annual open meeting to provide an opportunity for the public and the news media to see the full Housing Authority at work. From September, all regular full meetings were open to them.

Apart from the eight standing committees, the special committee on the clearance of Kowloon Walled City, established in January 1987, is expected to complete its work soon.

Other ad hoc committees have completed or are about to complete their tasks of examin- ing the housing needs of the 'sandwich class'; reviewing domestic rent policy and allocation standards; reviewing the policy on housing subsidy; setting out a programme of work on the allocation and standards of vacant flats and reviewing schemes to promote home ownership.

The authority is responsible for its own finance and management and will continue to provide homes at affordable rents and prices to the people. Under an arrangement which came into effect in April 1988, the government continues to ensure the availability of funds required for the housing programmes as set out in the Long Term Housing Strategy.

On March 31, 1992 the government's capital investment and contribution to housing stood at about $110.3 billion, which comprised permanent capital of $25.1 billion, contri- bution to domestic housing of $75.8 billion and non-domestic equity of $9.4 billion.

In the 1991-2 financial year, recurrent expenditure on the authority's domestic rental properties, covering mostly management and maintenance costs, totalled $5,649.2 million, while income from domestic rents was $4,905.4 million, resulting in a deficit of $743.8 million. This deficit was mainly because the low rents in old estates were insufficient to cover management expenses and the high cost of maintenance and improvements.

The authority was able to offset this deficit partly from income derived from its non-domestic properties which, over the same period, generated a surplus of $478.9 million after charging amortisation and paying interest on permanent government capital and 50 per cent dividends to government.

The authority spent $7,411.5 million on its capital programmes, of which $6,661.5 million (89.9 per cent) was financed by the authority, while the balance of $750.0 million (10.1 per cent) came from the government through supplementary injection of capital.

Construction

With the continued lower levels of private sector workload and an improvement in the labour shortage situation of previous years, tender prices remained very competitive throughout the year.

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