QUESTION: What is the difference between 295 and 120?
Answer: about two weeks.
This at least is how long it has taken Transport Secretary Nicholas Ng Wing-fui to bring down his estimate of the 20-year economic benefits of the proposed Route 10 from HK$295 billion to HK$120 billion.
It was a HK$295 billion estimate to legislators two weeks ago along with an appeal for approval of the scheme on the grounds that 'the economic returns are so huge we should not overlook them'. But in a letter to the editor yesterday ('Hong Kong will lose billions if road is not constructed'), he said: 'Without Route 10, Hong Kong will suffer an economic loss of HK$120 billion over a 20-year planning horizon.'
Just keep taking that number down at the same rate, Mr Ng, and within another two weeks Route 10 will give us no benefit at all. We can then safely scrap it and turn to the more pressing matter of reducing that mammoth fiscal deficit we face through the public expenditure cuts we have been promised, Route 10 for instance.
For the moment, however, we shall leave aside this penchant our civil servants have for throwing out huge numbers to beguile us into approving their dreams while giving us nothing to support them. Mr Ng faces a problem. A Legco sub-committee votes today on his HK$134 million pitch for Route 10 design work and it will be a close-run thing. If he loses this vote he can kiss Route 10 good-bye.
Now I wish sometimes that I also had an enormous staff on hand to do my research work and months to look at any issue. What I have, however, is my laptop, an Internet connection and a daily deadline.
