How can we serve without an office? 30 Hong Kong district councillors in plea for government help

Nearly 30 district councillors elected in November and still unable to find a permanent office more than a month after their term began have made a joint call for the government to review its role in supporting their work and the allowance system.

The councillors complained that without an office it was difficult for them to serve residents and to do their job as the government’s advisers on livelihood matters and public services in the city’s 18 districts.

These councillors, accounting for about 7 per cent of the city’s 431 directly elected district representatives, included re-elected politicians from the pro-establishment camp, first-time winners and “umbrella soldiers” inspired by the pro-democracy Occupy protests in 2014.

They are either unable to afford the expensive rents in shopping malls in their neighbourhoods, or are struggling with the Housing Department to find space in the public housing estates that lie within their constituencies.

In January, the Housing Department was accused of breaking its own rules by allowing lawmakers Christopher Chung Shu-kun and Elizabeth Quat, both from the Beijing-loyalist Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, to keep their offices despite losing to “umbrella soldiers” Chui Chi-kin and Yip Wing in Eastern and Sha Tin respectively.

The department dismissed the accusation by saying that the rule of priority for district councillors only applied to newly-created units. It also agreed to build an office for Chui.

The department’s explanation had failed to impress even Chung’s party colleague Benny Cheung Yiu-pan, a newly elected councillor in Kwun Tong.