CY Leung’s dream of Hong Kong tech bureau stays alive as Legco approves extra meetings
Leung Chun-ying’s attempt to secure funding for a controversial techn bureau moved a small step closer after the government’s request for extra meetings of the Legislative Council’s finance committee was granted.
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s attempt to secure funding for a controversial innovation and technology bureau moved a small step closer on Thursday after the government’s request for extra meetings of the Legislative Council’s finance committee was granted.
Legco Finance Committee chairman Tommy Cheung Yu-yan approved the additional sessions next week to allow more time to discuss all 11 remaining items on the agenda. However, Cheung was unsure if there would be enough time to scrutinise the HK$39 million funding request for the tech bureau –widely seen as Leung’s brainchild – which is the last item up for discussion.
Cheung scheduled extra meetings between Tuesday and Thursday next week, totalling 28 hours, after the number of lawmakers who agreed to them equalled that of those against, he said.
“I see that most Hong Kong people would like to see we finish all the items on agenda,” Cheung said.
“I am not serving the interest of the chief executive, I am doing what is good for Hong Kong.
“As the chairman of the finance committee, I have the power to call a meeting or not.”
Some radical pan-democrats have vowed to launch a filibuster in order to derail the funding request for the tech bureau, which they claim is a waste of money.
“I will also make sure the meetings would be held in a proper and effective manner,” said Cheung, when asked how he would deal with the filibustering.
READ MORE: CY Leung slams pan-democrat filibusters as he announces plan to clean Hong Kong streets
Democratic Party chairman Emily Lau Wai-hing criticised the chief executive for treating legislators as his servants.
“We seem to hold extra meetings just to help his plans get passed. That is outrageous and ridiculous,” she said.
Tam Yiu-chung, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said he appreciated the need to have more meetings.
Leung this morning slammed pan-democrat lawmakers’ filibustering against the creation of the tech bureau during a Legco Q&A session.
“Unfortunately over the past two weeks, the lawmakers who filibuster continue to filibuster, while those lawmakers who tolerate filibustering continue to tolerate filibustering,” Leung said in his opening remarks, as he attended the last question-and-answer session in Legco before the summer recess.
Leung said the creation of the tech bureau, promised in his 2012 manifesto, had already dragged on for three years and that “no Hongkongers would believe the government would fail to address all concerns [floated by lawmakers] in three years’ time.”
The filibustering, which had left the funding requests of 27 public work items still up for debate in the last Legco year, had led to construction delays of six months on average and additional building costs of HK$2.5 billion.
