Exco defends decision to cut committee secretariat

Raimundo Rosário and Leong Heng Teng

Executive Council spokesperson Leong Heng Teng has reiterated that the axing of the Urban Planning Committee’s secretariat will have no effect on the power and duties of the committee or its independence. The Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo Rosário, has also rejected the allegation that the government’s decision is administratively illegal on account of a failure to allow the committee to discuss the issue.
In a press conference yesterday, Mr Leong said that all 14 members of the committee secretariat were sustaining a very heavy workload. According to the department’s development trajectory, it will need to hire more people to handle the increasing capacity. As a result, the government believes it would be a better utilization of human resources if the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) takes over the work of the committee secretariat.
He stressed that the secretariat only has a supportive role. Therefore, the independence of the committee should not be compromised by the cancellation of the secretariat.
Moreover, Secretary Rosário, who also attended the press conference, argued that the government had not broken the law when it axed the department before allowing the committee to discuss the issue first. He said that, while the relevant legislation stated that one of the duties of the committee is to discuss legislation and regulations related to urban planning, the existence of the secretariat does not fall into that category. Therefore, the government is not obliged to seek opinions from the committee regarding the change.
However, both officials failed to address concerns regarding the possible conflict of interest when staff members at DSSOPT were asked to prepare information and to provide potentially adverse advice to their own bureau.
According to Jornal Cheng Pou, lawmaker Ng Kuok Cheong has declared it vital that the Urban Planning Committee remains independent and provides all of the relevant data and information available to its members, so that they can properly balance the interests of the public and developers, as well as monitoring the government’s development projects.
The lawmaker expressed fears that once the DSSOPT assumes the work of the secretariat, officials can then filter information provided to the committee members.
Mr Ng also revealed that, in a closed-door Legislative Assembly meeting, Secretary Rosário stated that administrative procedures in the MSAR government, such as the requirement for documentation and supervision, have led to a slowdown in administration. He is concerned that the public works departments of the government will return to the Ao Man Long era if administrative procedures are reduced. “Now that [some officials] think the Ao Man Long case is approaching its end, they might want to go back to the old way,” he said, warning that this will see the return of several loopholes. JPL