Legco Casts Doubt Over Planned Railway Department

Lawmakers have expressed doubt as to whether a proposed Railway Department would be able to tackle the sort of problems that the MTR Corporation has found itself embroiled in in recent years, saying the root cause is the company's monopoly.

Among other things, two major projects – the high-speed rail line and the Shatin-Central link – were hit by repeated delays, budget blow-outs and construction scandals.

The government has proposed merging the current Railway Development Office under the Highways Department and the Railways Branch under the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department to form a new department under the Transport Bureau.

The full annual average staff cost would be about HK$125 million.

At a Legco railways subcommittee meeting on Friday, Luk Chung-hung from the Federation of Trade Unions said he had reservations regarding the proposal, saying the problems with the MTR Corporation stem from it being a monopoly.

New People's Party's Regina Ip agreed, adding that the proposal should be left to the next term of government, as the tenure of Carrie Lam's administration is coming to an end next year.

"I don't think a new department, adding more staff at senior level will resolve the management problems," she told RTHK after the meeting. "I think the fundamental problem is the MTRC is a monopoly."

"Without any competition, it is difficult to assess whether the construction prices are reasonable. You know now for constructing one kilometre of railway, it costs something like HK$5 billion. The costs are ridiculous."

Transport Secretary Frank Chan said in response that the government won't rule out introducing competition in the future, but it won't happen overnight.

He also said the supervision by the new department, from the planning of a new line to its construction and operation, will be comprehensive and forward-looking.