Legco approves transport subsidy
The government's controversial HK$4.8 billion transport subsidy scheme was passed yesterday, giving low-paid workers a monthly allowance of up to HK$600, despite firm opposition from within and outside the Legislative Council.
Many pan-democrat and unionist lawmakers walked out of the 60-member chamber during the voting. The new scheme was approved by 30 votes, with seven abstentions and none against.
The Work Incentive Transport Subsidy Scheme is intended to benefit more low-income earners by covering all the 18 districts instead of just the four served by the Transport Support Scheme, which has been in force since mid-2008. Some 40,000 residents in Yuen Long, Tuen Mun, North District and Outlying Islands currently receive a HK$600 monthly subsidy each.
The new scheme is expected to benefit about 165,000 families, or around 436,000 workers.
However, lawmakers, unions and grass-roots concern groups believe it will exclude many low-paid workers from the allowance. They note that the means test is based on family and household incomes and assets rather than on individual incomes, so it will deprive some existing beneficiaries of the money they now receive.
The old scheme benefited people who earned not more than HK$6,500 a month. Under the new scheme, the income limits for two- and three-member households are HK$12,000 and HK$13,000 respectively.
Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee of the Civic Party said: 'It is like a repeat of the old age allowance that the government proposed [in 2008], raising the amount but requiring them to take a means test.' That means test was scrapped after fierce protests.
'I really cannot see why [current recipients] should lose the benefit in the new scheme,' Ng said.
Together with many other lawmakers at the Finance Committee meeting, unionist Leung Yiu-chung demanded to know how many recipients would lose their benefits.
'And can you tell us how you will deal with workers who originally enjoyed the subsidy but are not in the new scheme,' Leung asked.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said the government could not give an estimate. He said the government was 'not trying to avoid the question'.
'We did not ask applicants in the old scheme to disclose their household incomes, so we cannot estimate how many of them would be disqualified in the new scheme,' he said. He said the first payments could be made before the end of the year.
One security guard said 29 of her 30 colleagues would stop getting the allowance because their household earnings exceeded the new limits.
'Why can't the government allow us to apply for the allowance as individuals?' asked Ah Yip, 53, who works for a security firm that serves government buildings in North District. 'We are all in our 50s or 60s and we all have family. Only a colleague who lives with her mother-in-law, who no longer works, will qualify.'
She said each guard earned only HK$6,000 a month. A resident of Yuen Long, Ah Yip would no longer be eligible since her son, 19, earns HK$7,000 and her daughter, 21, earns HK$4,000 in a part-time job.
One of her colleagues, Ah Cheung, 60, was equally upset. 'My wife earns HK$8,000 a month working in a restaurant. We earn just a little bit more than the income cap ... but can you say we are financially sound?'
Ah Yip lambasted the government for failing to recognise their predicament. 'Every day I spend lots of time in the wet market trying to look for the cheapest food.'
The Federation of Trade Unions found in a poll last month that about half of its 150 interviewees who were recipients said they expected to be squeezed out of the subsidy scheme.
