Chan Kin-por To Sound Out By-election Winners

The chairman of Legco's Finance Committee, Chan Kin-por, says he plans to meet newly elected lawmakers after Sunday's by-elections to discuss ways to speed up the scrutiny of government funding applications.

Chan said there are only around 60 hours of meeting time left before the end of this legislative year, but there are over 30 applications pending, including controversial items such as extra funding for the Sha Tin to Central rail-link and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.

He said members need to decide what to prioritise: "If we look at the time available for those that are controversial, we may need to discuss for about 10 hours for one item. That means we have very little time for the non-controversial items.

"So I'm going to talk with those incoming Legco members and existing members so that we can decide on which items we need to discuss in detail and those that we probably don't need to discuss at all."

Earlier this month 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 said, 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. She said she plans to shuffle the order to prioritise less controversial projects.