Lawmakers Trade Blame Over Protest Chaos

Pro-government lawmakers and the opposition traded blame over the current situation in Hong Kong on Monday, as the finance committee meeting was once again hit by constant arguments with pan-democrats trying to delay the election of a new chairman for the panel.

Some pan-democratic lawmakers said Legco should not go about its business as usual when the police are cracking down on anti-government protesters.

But the DAB's Elizabeth Quat said lawmakers have a duty to vet funding requests and the pan-democrats are simply delaying things.

The convenor of the pan-dems, Tanya Chan, hit back saying the duty of lawmakers is to monitor the government, not just to cooperate with it.

She said if the government had listened to them and had withdrawn the contentious extradition bill in June, the current situation in Hong Kong could have been avoided.

As the arguments continued, Chan Kin-por, the incumbent chairman conducting the proceedings, blamed the opposition for the chaos.

"If Legco didn't have the pro-establishment camp, Hong Kong would have collapsed a long time ago," he said. "You use distorted facts to provoke young people to take to the streets, many people have done things that they will regret for life, it's because of you folks."

This prompted howls of protest from the pan-democrats.

Earlier as the meeting resumed, pro-democracy lawmakers challenged Chan Kin-por over how he had called the meeting without the usual five-day notice.

The committee had spent around three hours on Friday trying to elect a chairman, but failed to complete the task.

Chan said the committee urgently needs to meet to choose a chairman as it has to handle a backlog of funding requests as soon as possible.