Gov’t to disclose details on land debts in mid Oct

The government will provide facts and explanations on the topic of its “undisclosed” land plot exchange deals in the middle of October to the Legislative Assembly (AL)’s Follow-up Committee for Land and Public Concession Affairs. The Committee’s president, lawmaker Ho Ion Sang, acknowledged after a meeting yesterday that the latest information that the AL possesses on the matter hasn’t been updated in four years.
Regarding the government’s alleged land debts of which the public had not been informed, Ho said that the administration had briefed the Committee back in 2011, where it introduced ten land exchange deals, which included the recent controversial case of the Iec Long Firecracker Factory heritage site. However, the authorities neither provided sufficient information at the briefing, nor have followed up with any updates since then.
“At that time, the government said two of the ten land plot exchanges had been completed; but after all these years, the numbers and situations should have been changed. They only introduced the cases briefly, but it doesn’t necessarily only involve ten land plots; it could be more. The government only mentioned what types of land the exchange deals were, such as for developing the gaming industry, building public housing, squares and parks,” he explained.
The lawmaker criticized the administration for “not having done an adequate job in terms of ensuring transparency and the citizens’ right to know.” “What are the changes after four years? Who are the landholders and how large are the sizes? What are the reasons to make the exchange deals? Only by giving a detailed account, could the government regain its credibility from the citizens,” he stated, adding that the Committee would wait until October for the explanation due to the AL’s intersession starting today.
The land deal reportedly created in 2001 to preserve the firecracker factory site and build a theme park involves an area comprising 15.2 hectares. Currently, the debt generated in the deal still remains unresolved, with 133,710 square meters owed to the landholders.
The case has been submitted to the Commission Against Corruption for investigation by the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário. Following suspicions in society that the government might cut plots off the future reclaimed zones in order to pay off its land debt, the Chief Executive Chui Sai On also assured lawmakers in a Q&A session held a day earlier that, “none of the plots of the [future] 350-hectare new reclaimed zones have been approved to be used for paying the land debt.”
Chui further called for the public to “look at the repayment of land plot debts fairly, as the land exchange deals were made because of policy preferences and for public interest in the past, and were made fairly, openly and in compliance with the law.”