Aid Going To Wrong Businesses: Fernando Cheung

Labour Party lawmaker Fernando Cheung said on Thursday that the government's HK$137 billion relief package is flawed and wasteful, as the sweeping measures will see businesses doing well out of the epidemic also getting paid.

Cheung said this doesn’t make sense as some businesses, such as supermarkets, have benefitted from the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said the government should only help firms which have forced staff to take unpaid leave.

The highlight of the package is an HK$80 billion job retention scheme, where the government will pay half of workers' salaries for six months, capped at HK$9,000 a-month, but only to those companies who don't sack staff.

Cheung said a more targeted relief package would require less money.

"We have calculated that if they were only subsidising people who had to take unpaid leave, it would only amount to about HK$16 billion if we were to pay for six months," he said.

Cheung said, assuming up to 6.1 percent of the work force had to take unpaid leave, the government would only have to pay a fifth of the HK$80 billion earmarked for the entire market.

He said any money left over should go to people who had lost their jobs.