New Arrivals Start Applying For Cash Handouts

New immigrants who missed out on this summer's HK$10,000 handout for permanent residents started applying for their own payouts on Sunday, with queues forming outside some branches of the bank that is handling the means-tested scheme.

An elderly man surnamed Ng was first in the queue outside a Sham Shui Po branch of the Bank of China, arriving an hour before the doors opened.

Ng told RTHK that he has been in Hong Kong for more than six years, living on social welfare payments. He said he plans to save the HK$10,000 handout for when he is eventually allocated a public flat, and then he'll spend it on renovations and electronic goods.

He added that he personally has not been hit in the pocket by the coronavirus pandemic. "I get the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance. The government pays me every day. So there's not much effect financially," he said.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged man at the bank shrugged off the handout.

"I will go out and consume more. But I haven't thought about what to do [with the money]. It can help a little bit. I wouldn't say it gets me all relaxed. You have still got to work, this is Hong Kong."

Another woman in the queue, who said she lives nearby, was planning to use the handout to pay for an English tutor for her son, and put some towards the university fees for her daughter, who studies on the mainland.

The woman said she found the application process to involve a lot of red tape and said the government should have provided the money sooner.

The handout scheme is for adult non-permanent residents who receive welfare payments. The government expects around 200,000 people to apply and says the scheme is likely to cost some HK$2.1 billion in total.

Welfare minister Law Chi-kwong, who paid a visit to the bank branch in Sham Shui Po, said the application process was going smoothly so far.