‘Keep tight grip on handouts’, top adviser to CY Leung urges as Hong Kong budget nears

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah should not offer generous handouts in next month’s budget despite his expectation of a fiscal surplus in each of the next three financial years, the top adviser to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said.

“I neither believe nor hope the financial secretary to go back on the old path of offering unreasonable handouts,” Executive Council convenor Lam Woon-kwong told the South China Morning Post.

He also dismissed the likelihood that the finance chief would increase spending on relief measures to win over the public in the aftermath of the 79-day Occupy Central protests.

In last year’s budget, Tsang trimmed one-off relief measures by 40 per cent, from HK$33 billion to HK$20 billion, saying he was preparing for an ageing population.

He scrapped an HK$1,800 electricity subsidy in place since 2008, cut the rent-free period for public-housing tenants from two months to one and offered a property rates waiver for two quarters, rather than the full year.

Writing in his blog last month, Tsang said he expected Hong Kong to have a financial surplus in each of the next three fiscal years, allowing the government to “save up” in advance for public housing plans without sacrificing other services.