All hopes are on Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen to continue his efforts to provide stability to the economic system and rebuild confidence. It is hoped above all that he will put people first in his policy address next month because, after all, policies must serve people.
Drawing on the recommendations of the Task Force on Economic Challenges, Tsang announced that his administration had identified six areas for government support that would diversify the economy and promote a knowledge-based economy. These six are: education, particularly private tertiary education; medical services; testing and certification; environmental industry; innovation and technology; and, cultural and creative industries.
There is little doubt that Hong Kong has the qualities to do well in these areas, that these are all worthwhile activities to promote and that the city will do well to diversify. But they should not be the top priority at this moment. These are longer-term developments, and the government would do well to pay attention to more immediate concerns.
Yiren weiben, or 'putting people first', has been a principle that Tsang had alluded to many times before. This is indeed important, and it is time to give it some real weight. An example of putting people first is his proposal to increase the budget allocated to health and medical care from 15 per cent to 17 per cent of total public expenditure. This proposal is to be applauded, and shows he is not dogmatically holding on to some rule-of-thumb ratios, but I see little time to wait. Any time wasted implies more suffering and lost lives.
Sadly, in the past few years, there have been a number of incidents that may reflect a lack of sensitivity to putting people first on the part of some of Tsang's colleagues. There is no excuse for inaction, for example, when people had already reported problems with a tree - or a heavy metal gate - that would pose a danger to people. There is no excuse for not replacing ambulances that had become unreliable because of age. There is no excuse for reducing spending on psychiatric care when the need for such services is rising.
All the reasons offered in these examples, such as there being too many repair orders for the Buildings Department to process, were just excuses. Admittedly, there have been notable improvements in the past year, such as better drainage and air quality. The government has done a great job fighting the recession. But Tsang would do well to remind his colleagues that lives are worth more than the few dollars saved.