Budget lacks long-term vision to seriously address poverty
Oxfam Hong Kong's main concern is how the government deploys its resources to address the needs of the poor and disadvantaged, and the widening income gap in Hong Kong.
While we welcome the one-off payments to CSSA recipients and the one-off supplement to old-age allowance recipients in the budget, we are concerned that these are mainly short-term measures and weak.
In the budget speech, the alleviation of poverty was not made a priority. Neither was any indicator being employed as policy targets for poverty alleviation.
What was most disappointing was that the budget did not acknowledge the polarisation of income in the community. While more attention was paid to boost investments in mainstream industries, like logistics, finance and commercial services and the expansion of the creative industries and the finance market, little thought was given to finding a way to invest in our future economic development that can provide sufficient decent employment to people from all walks of life.
There was no pro-poor economic development plan in the budget, nor a clear plan for sustainable development for all classes.
Closer examination of the measures in the whole budget show that better-off people still gain more through tax measures like cut-off of rates, property tax and (salary) tax rebates. This is more than what poor people gain from cash support. For a family of four with two dependent children, living in the room of a private flat in an area like Sham Shui Po, each family member can get a maximum of about HK$37 per month, while the rich families who earn HK$1.8 million annual income and have a flat for rent, can get a gift of around HK$1,322 per person per month from the government.
Any attempt at redistribution to ease the wealth gap is seriously offset by the tax rebate.
Oxfam believes that a long-term comprehensive policy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development for all is badly needed. It is the duty of the government to bring this into its budget plan.
Joseph Woo, manager for Hong Kong programme,
Oxfam Hong Kong
