ESCALATING property prices could provoke civil disturbances among Hong Kong people frustrated that they can now no longer afford to buy a home, legislator Martin Lee Chu-ming warned yesterday.
''If you want to buy a flat which befits your station in life with your income or with your retirement pension, you can't,'' he said at a special Finance Committee meeting.
His United Democrat colleague Cheung Man-kwong accused the Government of having a vested interest in keeping the prices high, since a large slice of its healthy surplus came from stamp duties of property transactions and premiums on land sales.
The warning came amid news that new luxury flats in Robinson Road which came on to the market only on Monday were setting new records, now fetching between $11,000 to $13,000 per square foot.
Mr Cheung said it was obvious that a handful of property developers were hoarding land and flats to make more money.
But Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands Tony Eason said the Government had no evidence of hoarding.
''Quite the contrary, all the pressure on my departments is to speed up land transactions, to speed the issue of occupation permits, to approve sales of flats in advance of completion and to enable developers and producers of flats to get more productionon the market as quickly as possible,'' he said.