Revamp Plan Will Get Green Light From Exco: CE

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that she is confident the Executive Council will approve government restructuring plans largely based on her initial suggestions, after receiving broad support from society and her successor John Lee.

Lam earlier proposed setting up a new bureau to oversee culture, sports and tourism, splitting the Transport and Housing Bureau into two, and getting the Home Affairs Bureau to look after youth and district affairs.

"John Lee felt that he agreed with the entire package... but I can also tell you that there will be other proposals, it would not be just the set of proposals put forward by the current term of government," Lam told reporters ahead of the Exco meeting.

"This is only natural, because each chief executive will have his own governance style, and having regard to the aspirations of people and the priorities he has set for the next five years, it is only natural for him to come up with more ideas on how to restructure the government."

But Lam said she is not in a position to say which current principal officials might stay on in the incoming administration.

"My job is to facilitate the approval for a new government structure, I'm not involved in identifying the candidates to fill the various positions in the political team. Whether that could be done in time, I don't know, you have to ask the chief executive-elect," she said.

"But it will be very unusual to invite the existing politically appointed officials just to fill the gap and stay on for a few months, because they are not civil servants. Their term is entirely my term, it's a five-year term. I hope that would not be the situation, and I have every confidence that John [Lee] should be able to find all the right people to fill the various positions."