Legislators have accused the Government of failing to keep a promise not to seek further funding for the Strategic Sewage Disposal Scheme.
Yesterday, officials requested an extra $115 million. Some $487.6 million has already been approved for stage one of the project.
The new money is to replace a faulty mucking system and for additional ground strengthening and stabilisation for work done on poor ground. Two tunnels - from Tsing Yi to Stonecutters Island and from Kwai Chung to Tsing Yi - will be completed with the extra money.
The Government said the works would have to be abandoned if the funding was not available by early December.
Choy So-yuk, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, recalled that officials had promised several years ago not to seek more money.
'The Government asked for $1.7 billion from the provisional legislature for the sewage project and told us that it surely would not need to ask for more funding,' she said. 'Mr [Kim] Salkeld [Deputy Secretary of the Environment and Food Bureau] had promised me that the sewage tunnels will be ready in 1999 but now he says it will be 2001. Is it the Government's fault?'