Keep airport public

I HAVE some reservations about the Government's eagerness to push through the Airport Corporation Bill. It is not merely a change in name but has far-reaching consequences in the new airport financial arrangement, operation and spending, especially on awarding contracts for major construction and equipment supply.

Under the memorandum of understanding, an ''airport authority'' should be established to ''be modelled as far as possible on the MTRC Ordinance'', but this does not mean that the ''authority'' should be changed to ''corporation''. Besides, the general public is not completely satisfied with the operations of both MTRC and KCRC. Complaints have frequently been aired about the operation and fare structure of both corporations, but there is no way that the commuters can exercise any control as they are ''corporations'' running on strictly commercial practices.

There are several fundamental differences between an ''authority'' and a ''corporation'': The corporation may raise money by way of loan based on its own credit rating.

The corporation need not pay dividends into the general revenue if it is not making any profit. There are many ways of making the corporation not able to pay dividends even if it is profitable.

As the airport corporation would be managed ''according to prudent commercial principles'' and have the power to award contracts without releasing any details of the contract prices, there is no way that neither the Legislative Council nor the Airport Consultative Committee can monitor the ways the money is spent, let alone the general public.

As a ''corporation'' it would be run the same way as any private or listed company, it has no obligation to inform the general public how the money is spent nor the enumeration of its staff including all fringe benefits such as overseas visits to other airports around the word.