The government's move to prop up the property market by suspending the sale of subsidised flats will cost taxpayers at least $386 million, legislators were told yesterday.
The Housing Department's deputy director, Tam Wing-pong, said at a Legco housing panel meeting that the authorities had already paid $216 million in rates, government rent and maintenance costs since the sales were suspended in November 2002.
Mr Tam estimated another $170 million would be spent before 2007, when the flats go on sale.
The figure led to renewed calls by legislators for the government to sell the flats under the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS).
They passed a resolution calling on the authority to sell unsold HOS flats as soon as possible.
Democratic Party legislator Fred Li Wah-ming said: 'What you have just told us is far from the total amount of money you will waste.
'When you sell the flats in 2007, they are already old and they can't be sold as new flats. This is an invisible loss.'
