Money is frozen in training board's account until case ends
As foreign maids prepare to march in Hong Kong next Sunday, more than $1 billion at the centre of their grievances lies in limbo in a retraining board's bank account.
By the end of December last year, $1.6 billion sat frozen in the Employees Retraining Board's account, awaiting the outcome of an appeal of a judicial review launched by one Indonesian and three Filipina maids.
They claim a $400-a-month levy, imposed on their employers in October 2003, and the reduction in their minimum wage by an identical amount, is an illegal tax introduced by the government. Having lost their High Court hearing in January 2004, the maids will bring their arguments to the Court of Appeal in April this year.
Legal experts have said if the government loses the case, it faces a complicated process of deciding what happens to the money that has already been collected, and it is likely that even if they win, the maids may never see a cent of the money they say they have lost.
The Asian Migrants Co-ordinating Body, an umbrella group for foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong, is organising a rally next Sunday to press the government to raise their monthly pay. With at least 200,000 foreign maids in Hong Kong, more than $80 million a month is raised with the levy.
Legal observers say whoever wins this latest round in the Court of Appeal, it is likely the parties will take the matter to the Court of Final Appeal and more than $3 billion may have been raised by the time it is settled.
