[Legislative Council] Government project funding skipped public works group and went to Finance Committee for deliberation

Politics

Written by: Zheng Baosheng

2020-02-28 16:56

The outbreak of new coronavirus pneumonia (commonly known as Wuhan pneumonia) was raging, and some meetings of the Legislative Council were cancelled, and the Public Works Subcommittee meeting was no exception.

The government sent a letter to the Public Works Group stating that it would withdraw the capital construction funding documents for 2020-2021 and forward it to the Finance Committee for discussion.

Wuhan pneumonia outbreak cancels multiple meetings

The Financial Affairs and the Treasury Bureau sent a letter to the Chairman of the Legislative Council's Public Works Subcommittee, Lu Weiguo, stating that due to the outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, some meetings were cancelled and lost a total of 8 hours of meeting time.

The letter stated that the aforesaid project funding needs to be approved by the Finance Committee before April 1. Otherwise, it will not be possible to continue to pay contractual payments for about 10,000 projects, and the government may therefore have to pay interest and additional costs and face litigation risks. At the same time, it will affect the capital turnover of related companies, involving the livelihood of 17,000 people. In addition, failure to allocate funds will also affect emergency repair works.

As of February 26, the Public Works Group has not yet started discussing the appropriation. Therefore, the government has decided to withdraw the document and submit it directly to the Finance Committee for review. This will allow the finance committee members sufficient time to discuss and hope that the appropriation will be approved by the end of March.

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