The city's HK$30.5 billion waste infrastructure projects - an incinerator and expanded landfills - have finally been approved after nearly four months of filibustering by pan-democrats.
But the government faces a backlog of funding requests in the Legislative Council's Finance Committee, including for the creation of an innovation and technology bureau promised during Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's election campaign in 2012.
In a 40-17 vote yesterday, lawmakers approved the plan to build an incinerator, which would cost HK$19.2 billion, on an artificial island near Shek Kwu Chau, south of Lantau. Construction is expected to begin in 2017. It could be operational by 2022.
"The government would speed up the tendering procedures in an attempt to ease the shortage of waste facilities," said Environment Secretary Wong Kam-sing.
He urged pan-democrats to stop filibustering, saying some funding requests had been delayed for months.
As part of the non-cooperation campaign against Beijing's restrictive framework for the 2017 chief executive election, pan-democrats have been asking repetitive questions and tabling hundreds of amendments in an attempt to stall proceedings on funding requests for a feasibility study on expanding the Tuen Mun landfill and the plan to expand the landfills in Ta Kwu Ling and Tseung Kwan O since October.