Outside In | Maybe this time round, our next chief executive might consider my ‘Ten Projects for the People’
A close look at the flagship ‘Ten Mega-Infrastructure Projects’ of the former Chief Executive reveals glacial progress
Seven years have passed since Donald Tsang (remember him?) unveiled in his 2010 Policy Address “Ten Mega-Infrastructure Projects” for Hong Kong.
He was lambasted for throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at iconic projects that seemed more to please Hong Kong’s business aristocracy than to meet the needs of a community still reeling from the 2008 crash.
At the time, I argued that the then-Chief Executive would have been better attuned to local needs by proposing “Ten Projects for the People”.
Of course, most of my suggestions were studiously ignored, but as we sit mulling CY Leung’s last 2017 Policy Address, and await our next Budget, I thought it would be fun to glimpse back at those 10 mega-infrastructure projects, and revisit the case for my cherished “Projects for the People”.
The first shock on reviewing Donald’s project list was to see just how glacially these plans have moved.
Among the six transport-related plans, the South Island Line is at last open (though it was scheduled to begin operations in 2015).