Team Clean II to mop up jobless
The government will create thousands of temporary jobs for cleaners to improve public hygiene amid the swine flu outbreak - and cushion the impact of the economic downturn.
The measure is one of several, costing more than HK$11 billion, which may be announced as soon as next week, a source familiar with the situation said.
Others include a waiver of property rates for another two quarters, at least one rent-free month for public-housing tenants, extra payments for welfare recipients and subsidies for needy pupils to pay for textbooks in the new school year, the South China Morning Post understands.
The government will also provide relief for sectors hit hard by the global flu outbreak, such as the tourist trade. Arrivals in the first half of this month were down 9 per cent year on year.
Six years ago amid the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, the government launched a blitz on public hygiene with its Team Clean, headed by Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, then the chief secretary.
'The amount of fresh sweeteners will be bigger than the HK$11 billion relief package announced by the chief executive last July,' the source said. 'The administration will face fierce criticism if the relief package is seen to be too small.'
The handouts will be the fourth from the government in 15 months, and take the total dished out since February last year to HK$74.5 billion.
In his maiden budget, delivered in February last year, Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah unveiled one-off measures worth HK$44.11 billion. In his second budget this February, he announced rent and rates waivers and salaries tax rebates worth HK$8.38 billion.
The chief executive said last week that additional relief measures would be announced within a month to ease the plight of the needy.
Hong Kong's economy shrank a worse-than-expected 7.8 per cent year on year in the first quarter. It was the biggest contraction since the Asian financial crisis 11 years ago. The quarter-on-quarter contraction was the biggest since at least 1990. The government has adjusted its forecast for the size of the economic contraction this year to 5.5 per cent to 6.5 per cent, from the 2 per cent to 3 per cent it forecast three months ago.
The source said the relief measures had been used before and would not be controversial. They did not include big policy changes, such as subsidising the commuting costs of all low-income workers.
Four helpings
The expected relief measures will be the fourth in 15 months
Including the new measures, the government's handouts will total, in Hong Kong dollars, $74.5b
