Govt Inaction Worst Thing To Happen: Chan Kin-por

The chairman of Legco’s finance committee, Chan Kin-por, on Wednesday said the current inaction by the government is the worst thing to happen, warning this is "very bad" for the people.

“I think the worst thing to happen is to, in the next few years, to see the government doing nothing because it’s easy for the government, but very bad for the Hong Kong people,” Chan said.

The pro-government lawmaker expressed worries that the tense social atmosphere resulting from the extradition bill saga will affect other livelihood issues waiting to be discussed in the legislature.

Chan said he was surprised when the government said it may delay its plan to partner with developers to build on vacant farmland in the New Territories.

“I understand that right now people are not calm enough to discuss things like that, so if there’s a short delay, I think that’s understandable,” he said. “But if I see the government totally scrapping the whole thing, I think that is wrong.

"When you have an issue that is controversial, it only means there are people supporting and people not supporting, so if the government think they are doing the right thing, they should try to convince, instead of not doing anything at all,” he added.

Chan’s remarks came a day after he announced that the committee will not discuss the government’s HK$550 million request for a feasibility study to build artificial islands off Lantau before the Legco summer break in July, as the administration had now put it at the bottom of the agenda for this legislative year.

Chan, meanwhile, said he’s calling on pan-democrat lawmakers to meet up and discuss how they can approve as many government proposals as possible in the 49 hours of finance committee meeting time left before the summer recess.

Chan told RTHK's Janice Wong that more than forty items are still waiting for finance committee approval, many of them related to livelihood issues.

But Democratic Party lawmaker James To said the government should remove the funding request for the Lantau reclamation feasibility study, so that lawmakers could “have a more relaxed, more peaceful, more comfortable time to scrutinise all other forty-odd items”.