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EOC saga holds up advisory body review

Klaudia Lee

A final report on the review of 500 advisory and statutory bodies will not be completed until early next year partly because of the Equal Opportunities Commission controversy, it emerged yesterday.

Seven representatives of Power for Democracy, the Hong Kong Democratic Foundation and The Frontier met Deputy Secretary for Home Affairs Stephen Fisher to express their views on the advisory body system.

After the meeting, Power for Democracy representative Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong said Mr Fisher had revealed that the review needed to be extended because of the controversial sacking of EOC operations director Patrick Yu Chung-yin, and several initiatives from Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa in January.

In his policy address, Mr Tung pledged that more middle-class people would be appointed to advisory and statutory panels to give them a more important role in the policy-making process.

Mr Tsoi said the representatives had urged the bureau to ensure the system would be more transparent, and that people from across the political spectrum had an equal chance of being appointed.

He said they had also called on the government to scrap the 102 appointed seats in the district councils.

The present system of advisory and statutory bodies has come under constant fire as the government has been accused of favouritism and failing to honour the 'six-board, six-year rule', which states that members of advisory and statutory bodies should not serve for more than six continuous years, nor should they serve simultaneously on more than six bodies.

It was recently revealed that the 102 appointed district councillors have on average been appointed nearly five times to various government advisory and statutory bodies in the past six years.

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