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SCMP Reporter

A WELFARE organisation has accused the Government of reneging on its promise to fund a new youth centre due to open next month.

  According to Ms Susan Chan Ching-yi, the service co-ordinator at the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Government approval for a new youth centre in Tin Shui Wai had been granted five years ago.

  But subvented welfare organisations were told by the Social Welfare Department late last year that no new funds would be earmarked for them in 1993-94 Budget and they should either close down existing centres or come up with their own funding sources forthe new centres.

  Though only $8.8 million is needed to fund these six new youth centres, no provisions have been made in the social services spending package in the new Budget.

  ''It seems the Government has poured in a lot of new money into social service in the new Budget but in fact many services have been cut or frozen,'' she said.

  The Government has given Ms Chan the option to close the Sha Tin Children and Youth Centre so funds could be diverted to the new centre.

  But she said her organisation would not close the 16-year-old centre, the first in Sha Tin and one of the most successful in the area.

  The centre has 1,300 members aged between six and 24.

  Mr Li Chi-hung, the head of the Sha Tin centre, said the Government had never attached any conditions when it gave approval for the Tin Shui Wai centre.

  ''The Government has clearly broken its promise,'' he said.

  Ms Susanna Tsoi Chi-ming, 21, who joined the Sha Tin centre more than 10 years ago and is now a volunteer tutor, said she would miss the centre if it closed because ''it was a big family for every member''.

  The Government had been trying to roll back for some time but she said staff members should try harder to improve the services to prove it had an irreplacable function.

  ''We deserve the right to exist. We must persevere,'' she said. ''We all rely on the centre very much. It is a safe and reliable place where we can meet friends and develop our interests.''   She said younger members would suffer the most as they all regarded the centre as their second home and spent most of their after-school hours there.

  ''The centre has been here long enough to build up a good reputation and all the parents trust their kids to us,'' Ms Tsoi said.

  Five other centres are in similar quandary because of the funding freeze.

    Ms Pamela Chan, from the Methodist Epworth Village Community Centre, warned the future working relationship between the Government and welfare organisations was being threatened.

  ''We cannot trust the Government anymore. This is very unfair,'' she said.

  Her organisation received permission in 1989 to move from its Hing Wah Estate centre to a bigger place on the Yiu Tung Estate in Shau Kei Wan but the Government only informed her last November it could not increase the existing level of funding.

  ''We are now put in a very difficult situation. On the one hand we don't want to give up the premises, but on the other hand we don't know whether we are going to get the subventions,'' she said.

    Miss Jane Tsuei, of the Hongkong Council of Social Service, who described the move as ''unprecedented'', said she was shocked by the Government's claim that it could not come up with money for the centres, especially with the huge surplus in the coffers.

 ''But we still hope there may be savings or underspending somewhere so that these centres will be open later,'' she said.



Funding freeze puts new youth centres out in cold