THE 500 staff of the Provisional Airport Authority (PAA) would be entitled to payments totalling $100 million if legislators continued to refuse funding beyond June and the Government was forced to wind up the organisation. Legislators have said the size of compensation for PAA staff would not be the major consideration in scrutinising any new funding proposal for the authority likely to be submitted to the Finance Committee by the end of next month. A PAA spokesman said most of the 500 staff in senior and middle levels were recruited on a two-year contract basis, with a quarter of them, mainly supporting staff, on permanent terms. It is the usual practice for contract staff to be paid to the end of the contract upon early termination of employment due to insolvency. Out of the 500 staff, nine are at the senior level earning an annual salary of around $1.5 million, while about 350 are in the middle rank earning $500,000 a year and 125 are supporting staff working on a permanent basis. Assuming all senior and middle-ranking staff are to receive compensation amounting to six months' salary, the PAA would be expected to offer around $100 million to the contract staff. Earlier this year, the PAA's chief executive, Mr Richard Allen, left his post suddenly and was replaced by Dr Hank Townsend. Mr Allen, who was on contract, is believed to have been given a ''golden handshake'' in excess of $6 million. Legislator Mr Albert Chan Wai-yip, from the United Democrats of Hongkong, said he would rather take the economic disbenefits brought by an early abortion of the new airport plan into account than worry about the compensation for PAA staff. Noting that dropping the Chek Lap Kok airport plan would make other projects - the Lantau Fixed Crossing and the North Lantau Expressway - redundant, Mr Chan said he would like to see the PAA keep running. A member of the preparatory committee of the Liberal Party, Mr Henry Tang Ying-yen, said the possible payoff would be one of the considerations, but not a major one when considering whether the PAA should be given further funding. ''The $100 million might be wasted at the end of the day because Sino-British relations might improve six months later and a new PAA would have to be set up,'' he said. He said he supported the building of the Chek Lap Kok airport and might support funds to enable the PAA to run for another six months. His colleague, Mr Howard Young, said he would not support any move to dissolve the PAA as this would mean an end to the Chek Lap Kok airport project. Mr Leung Kwong-cheong, of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood, said his group would approve further funding to the PAA until a Sino-British agreement on the financial arrangement for the airport and its associated rail link had been reached. While the Financial Secretary, Mr Hamish Macleod, has yet to unveil the size of funds to be sought, the Government has made a provision in the Budget estimates for 1993-94 to allocate $2.6 billion to the PAA. Together with the $14 billion already injected into the PAA, the Government would have pumped $16.6 billion into the airport body.
