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Letters | Carrie Lam should not stake her legacy on a wasteful and unnecessary reclamation project
- The chief executive surely knows better than to think an artificial island will solve Hong Kong’s problems or that it will come in under budget
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When Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was first anointed chief executive, I was quite willing to give her a chance to prove herself. After all, the bar set by the three previous post-1997 male chief executives was not high – none of them were impressive.
Today, Lam owes everything she has to the people of Hong Kong. As a civil servant, she enjoyed a 38-year “iron rice bowl career” – a job guaranteed for life, with regular salary increases.
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She has never worried about housing, having enjoyed government accommodation. While the American president, who is responsible for 327 million people, is paid around US$400,000, Lam, who is responsible for 7.4 million people, is paid around US$600,000 per year.
Her plan to reclaim 1,700 hectares (4,200 acres) from the sea off Lantau Island will be both an ecological and financial catastrophe.
Today, she claims this bizarre project will cost HK$500 billion (US$63.7 billion), half of our hard-earned financial reserves. However, the cost will surely double, leading to a bankrupt city, with Hong Kong then having to forever more beg for financial support from Beijing.
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