A Democratic Party proposal aimed at holding down service fees after the municipal councils are scrapped was rejected by officials yesterday.
Lawmakers expressed fears that charges would rocket without elected councillors to monitor them.
'Cats are not going to stop eating fish,' warned Lee Wing-tat of the Democratic Party at a Legco meeting on the reorganisation bill.
'In three or five years' time, once the Financial Secretary has stepped down, his successor may prove unable to bear it and step in.' The Treasury's commitment to keeping fees unchanged for the foreseeable future was insufficient, added party colleague Fred Li Wah-ming.
'How can I be at ease? The question is how much subsidy the Government is going to provide? 'One can imagine how much worse the situation will be when the Government says it will no longer subsidise 60 per cent of the service cost but only 10 per cent,' he said.
The Democrats suggested a mechanism to fix the government subsidy for municipal services.
