A REQUEST for funding of $485 million to host an international finance meeting in 1997 was passed by the Legislative Council yesterday despite abstention by the Democrats.
The funding request forwarded by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to hold the 1997 World Bank and International Monetary Fund Annual Meeting exceeded what the Government proposed to the council in 1993, which was for about $200 million.
Democratic Party members blamed the Government for deliberately producing the smaller figure last time to fool them into supporting the proposal.
The authority chief executive Joseph Yam Chi-kwong said the legislators should be 'sympathetic' to what was then a difficult situation for the Government.
'I hope the members will understand that in 1993 the Government had no means of getting reliable cost estimates for the function.
'We made it clear in the 1993 submission [to the finance committee] the estimation was a rough one.'
