CE And Protesters Frustrated By Finance Committee

The Chief Executive Carrie Lam says the government will speak to a number of political parties about the slow pace of funding approvals in the Legislative Council. The Finance Committee has only approved around HK$70 billion worth of public works, about a third of the total.

Lam says, at the current pace, it will be impossible for the committee to deal with the remaining funding requests with only eight meetings left in the current legislative year. But she says she will not admit defeat, as suggested by some of her colleagues, and withdraw some of them.

Lam says she plans to shuffle the order to prioritise less controversial projects.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people from the construction industry have staged a rally outside Legco, demanding lawmakers vet projects faster.

A spokesman from the Construction Industry Alliance, Thomas Tse, said the problem had being going for four years and that interconnecting projects were being affected.

He said civil engineering, ground work, and advanced work studies had been hit the most.

Meanwhile, Finance Committee chairman, Chan Kin-por, has said he plans to add more sessions.

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