Lawmakers hitout at HK's 'rich grandfather'
Lawmakers yesterday accused Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah of setting a bad example by offering short-term sweeteners while failing to solve the city's deep-rooted financial problems during his five years in office.
The debate in the Legislative Council on the HK$80 billion basket of relief and fiscal measures announced in Tsang's budget last month turned into a summing up of his achievements while in office.
Lawmakers said Tsang was well known for appeasing business and the middle class while failing to meet the long-standing needs of the grass-roots population. This applied particularly to the working poor renting private accommodation - the so-called N-nothings - who gain no benefit from budget relief measures because they do not receive welfare, pay tax or live in public housing.
'The term N-nothing emerged during the financial secretary's five-year term, as far as I recall,' Civic Party lawmaker Audrey Eu Yuet-mee said. 'The problem of the rich-poor gap, if not worse, has remained unsolved in the five years of the administration. It is very disappointing.'
Pan-democrat Albert Ho Chun-yan said the proportion of the city's families on low income had not been substantially reduced over the past few years. 'The prosperity that has come with development in the city has not been equally shared by different classes of people,' he said. 'The government is lacking social justice when it comes to balancing the wealth between the rich and poor.'
Lawmaker Priscilla Leung Mei-fun called Tsang the 'rich grandfather who gave away the most sweeteners in Hong Kong's history'.
But she said he left no particularly good policy by which he would be remembered.
Tam Yiu-chung, from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said the amount of government relief had increased each year during Tsang's term in office, but ironically, public grievances about its proposals had also grown. 'The reason is that the money has not been directed to the problems people care most about, such as housing, transport and an ageing population,' Tam said.
Leung Yiu-chung said Tsang set a bad example for the next administration.
'In what is believed to be his last budget, all Tsang said was that he would leave a healthy surplus for the next term, but he did not share his successes and failures with those who succeed him,' Leung said. 'There is no long-term vision of how to solve some of the city's core structural problems.'
Leung also criticised the fact that most relief measures benefited the middle class and business, yet again displaying how the government neglected the city's most needy.
But lawmaker David Li Kwok-po, from the financial sector, and Lau Wong-fat, from the Heung Yee Kuk constituency, supported Tsang's budget, as they thought it comprehensive and supportive of the financial sector, which was important to keep the city competitive.
Lau, however, expressed concern about the discrepancy between the government's projection and the city's real fiscal reserves.
This year the government again predicted a budget deficit, but found it had a surplus of HK$66.7 billion.
'This huge difference creates the feeling that miscalculation has become the norm,' Lau said. 'This will discredit the government's authority, and prompt questions about whether the fiscal measures proposed were based on false data.'
