No ruling on charge for discovery bay developer
The Lands Department has failed to assess whether the Discovery Bay developer should be charged a land premium for changing the project's master layout plan eight times since 1975.
The Audit Commission found that no premium was collected until 1994, when new changes were made. It said the changes to the layout plan had effectively turned the original intention of developing the site as a tourism resort to private housing during the period.
Finding no documented reasons for not charging any premium, the commission said the government might have suffered loss of revenue because of a lack of proper land-premium assessments but offered no estimate of the loss. It called on the department to establish clear rules on the conditions under which a land premium should be charged in case of layout changes. The department said it accepted the recommendations.
Overruns on road projects cost $147m
The government paid an extra $147.7 million for seven road-improvement projects that overran between 2001 and 2003 because of unforeseen site conditions, bad weather and additional works needed.