THE Chief Secretary is to be urged to allow legislators access to confidential documents on the setting up of the Hospital Authority.
Independent legislator Eric Li Ka-cheung, chairman of Legco's public accounts committee, described the move to write to Anson Chan Fang On-sang as a step up after the Government had denied legislators access in the committee's public hearing.
The authority has been criticised by Director of Audit Dominic Chan Yin-tat, who said its housing benefits were out of line with civil service norms. He predicted that in 20 years the authority's 3,150 senior staff would have been paid $6.7 billion more than their fellow civil servants.
Mr Li said the committee needed to see the document to resolve the question of whether the Executive Council was fully informed of the authority's remuneration package when it was formed in 1991.
'There are inconsistencies in what the Government and the Director of Audit said [in the committee's previous hearings], and we need to see the Exco documents,' he said.
Mr Li would not predict whether the Government would agree to grant access to the documents, but he said the Government should do so as an open administration.