Move to ease sewage charge blow
THE Government has raised its contribution towards cleaning up Victoria Harbour to soften the blow of the controversial sewage charge for householders and industry which is to be revealed soon.
An extra $1.9 billion will be added to the $3 billion pledged last October by the Governor, Mr Chris Patten, towards implementing the $8.3 billion sewage works.
About $1 billion of the new money will cover an additional project of upgrading sewers between the Macau ferry terminal in Sheung Wan and the Arts Centre in Wan Chai, which was not included in Mr Patten's original pledge.
The remaining $900 million will help reduce the bill to the public, who are likely to be asked to pay a monthly sewage charge linked to water bills, bringing the total burden down from $4.3 billion to $3.4 billion.
Opposition to the charging proposal, which should be released within the next two months, is expected from liberal legislators worried about the expense to the lower classes, and from industry.
Mr Macleod announced the new arrangements in his Budget speech and they were generally welcomed by observers.
The chairman of the Private Sector Committee on the Environment, Mr George Cardona, said the group was pleased with the extra cash and hoped rapid progress could be made on the work.
''The fact that more money has gone in means the eventual sewage charges will not need to be as high and therefore will be more acceptable to the public,'' he said.
In addition to Central and Wan Chai, the money will finance a system to collect sewage in Kowloon and remove some of the pollutants before it is dumped in the harbour.
Academics and green groups were also glad to see extra government input to the scheme, but some said more could be done.
The head of Hongkong University's centre for urban planning and environmental management, Dr Peter Hills, said the relief on sewage charges indicated that the burden on the public might otherwise have been too great.
''This [extra $900 million] will be a considerable subsidy, but it still keeps the principle that the polluter should pay, which is good,'' he said.
It was also only fair considering the Government's huge surplus, said Hongkong University biologist Dr John Hodgkiss, who has tracked local water quality for more than two decades, and Friends of the Earth spokesman Mr Henry Morritt.
The chairman of the Environmental Pollution Advisory Committee, Dr Wang Gung-wu, said it supported the polluter pays principle, but felt charges should be affordable to householders. He was glad to see more government input.
But Green Power founder, Mr Simon Chau Sui-cheong, said the extra money was the least the Government could contribute and he urged officials to look at other means of dealing with sewage besides building expensive pipelines.
''There is now very advanced technology to turn sewage into something more productive, such as fertilisers or even cooking gas,'' he said.
''We are wasting something very valuable by pumping it into the sea.''
