Legislators seek extra time for Budget questions

LEGISLATIVE Councillors are demanding more time for government officials to answer questions on the 1993-94 Budget after the administration revealed it had set aside only three days for the exercise.

The series of special Finance Committee meetings will be extended from last year's 21/2 days.

The sessions, scheduled for March 17 to 19, are meant to give members an opportunity to question policy secretaries on their spending proposals for next year.

The programme allots at least 55 minutes for each session with the more popular ones extended to two hours each.

Following a demand last year for more time to scrutinise spending estimates, an extra five to 15 minutes was allocated to most of the 16 sessions with others cut back to compensate.

Officials said the current programme had been prepared after taking into account views expressed by councillors during the last exercise.

They said the sessions on some key subject areas, such as health and welfare, education and manpower and security, had been lengthened to allow members to raise more questions.

According to the programme, each session will begin with a brief presentation by the policy secretary on policies in his area, priorities for the year ahead and the allocation of resources.

Legislator Mr Albert Chan Wai-yip said he had some reservations over the current arrangements and three days would not be enough for detailed questioning.

It was unnecessary for officialsto make opening remarks as that could be done by written submissions to members ahead of the meetings, he said.

His Legco colleague, Mr Frederick Fung Kin-kee, said it was desirable that areas related to people's livelihood be granted more time for questions and members should be allowed at least an hour for questions in each session.