On Sunday (10th), Chief Executive Carrie Lam said in an interview on a TV program that the government's goal is for public housing applicants to go upstairs in three years, so the Housing Authority has the responsibility to achieve the goal.
In order to reflect the spirit of accountability, she is conceiving to transfer cash allowances to departments that have been waiting for applicants for more than three years, and transfer them from the government to the Housing Authority. Responsible spirit".
The cash subsidy program was launched last year for three years and has distributed subsidies to more than 50,000 eligible households, accounting for about 85% of the eligible applications received. The government has set aside more than 8 billion yuan for this program.
The waiting time for public housing is getting longer and longer, and it takes an average of 5.8 years to get the first housing allocation.
The delay in the construction project of the Housing Authority is certainly one of the reasons, but Lam Cheng’s remarks seem to have overlooked the responsibilities of the Transport and Housing Bureau and the Development Bureau, and his proposal raises a question: Why does Lam think that the work of the Housing Authority And performance has nothing to do with the government?
There have indeed been many delays in the construction of public housing by the Housing Authority in the past.
Take 25 public rental housing estates with buildings completed between the 2015/16 and 2019/20 financial years as an example. Five of these housing estates have experienced delays in the contract construction period, ranging from half a month to six and a half months. The authorities stated that the main reason was that "the construction progress of the contractor was slower than originally planned."
However, the Solidarity Hong Kong Fund published a research report last year and pointed out that the delay occurred earlier, because comparing the estimated and actual completion time of the five annual projects, it can be found that three-quarters of the new public housing units were delayed by at least one year.
The Transport and Housing Bureau, the Development Bureau, and the Environment Bureau also have responsibilities
As the planner and builder of the project, the Housing Authority is naturally responsible for the delayed completion of the project. However, since the chairman of the Housing Authority is concurrently the Secretary of the Transport and Housing Bureau and the vice chairman is concurrently the Permanent Secretary of the Transport and Housing Bureau, the Bureau must have Coordinating the supply of land for public housing, so if the Housing Authority is responsible, the two politically appointed officials and the directorate civil servants involved should also be responsible at the same time.
Lam Cheng initially suggested that if the Housing Authority is too slow to build the house after the government handed over the land in the future, it must pay the cash allowance by itself.
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On the structural level, the Housing Authority is a statutory organization that is responsible for its own profits and losses. It is not an informal government department. The government also appoints social elites to formulate and supervise policies. However, its actual operation is not necessarily far away from the government system.
In addition to the Secretary for Transportation and Housing mentioned above and the permanent secretary serving as the chairman and vice chairmen of the Housing Authority, the Housing Authority originally relied on the Housing Department to implement specific policies, and the Housing Department employs about 9,800 civil servants.
In addition, the previous government introduced a housing reserve fund to meet the Housing Authority's housing construction expenditure, which is also a move that crosses the financial boundary between the Government and the Housing Authority.
Moreover, the completion of a public housing project should not only look at the stage of housing construction, but also at the pre-planning stage.
The Transportation and Housing Bureau, which oversees the Housing Authority, explained to the Legislative Council the difficulties in building houses at the end of last year. It emphasized that it takes time for "raw land" to become "prepared land." And the procedures of demolition, replacement of affected facilities, site formation and provision of infrastructure can only be used for housing construction."
In addition, the environmental impact assessment report related to the development project should also be handed over to the Environmental Protection Agency for criticism. It is obvious that to remove the obstacles to the slow progress of the project, the Development Bureau, the Environment Bureau and its departments must cooperate closely.
What is disappointing is that the government has repeatedly proposed simplification and reduction of planning procedures, but so far it is still a minor repair and supplementation, with no results.
Officials don't get lost in the blame game
It can be seen that the responsibility for the slow completion of public housing and the violation of the "three-year allocation of housing" promise is entirely blamed on the Housing Authority. It is indeed unfair. After all, it is involved in the Housing Authority’s decision-making by the Transportation and Housing Bureau and the Transportation and Housing Bureau, which is responsible for handling land supply. The Environmental Protection Bureau, which approves the EIA report, all play a certain role in the process.
Assuming that the department that slows down the progress of housing construction is responsible for the subsidy expenditure, it should also be shared by the three bureaux and the Housing Authority.
More importantly, since insufficient coordination between departments and lengthy procedures have delayed the completion time, should the consequences be reflected in the promotion and treatment of the principal officials?
At the end of June this year, the government launched a three-year pilot cash allowance scheme to provide cash allowances to grassroots families who have been waiting for public housing for a long time.
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Carrie Lam came up with the transfer of cash subsidies to put pressure on the government, which reflects that she views public housing construction as outside the government system. However, this idea is inconsistent with reality, and it is hard to say that it is beneficial to speed up housing supply.
From the point of view of utility, the cash subsidy paid by the Housing Authority is likely to be counterproductive: if the Housing Authority's cash flow is insufficient due to the subsidy, the consequence is that there is not enough money to build a house at any time, and the victims are the applicants who are waiting for the application.
Lam Cheng embodies the spirit of accountability and his attitude is desirable. The problem is to find relevant departments and use the right methods.
Public housing involves multiple agencies and departments and cannot be improved by the Housing Authority alone.
The public has long been tired of the government playing a game of shitting responsibility. The public is eager to see the teamwork of various departments and ranks to solve the housing problem as soon as possible.
The old public housing units are destroyed and the overall reconstruction needs the policy address. The government should pay attention to the sense of citizenship. The policy address. The belated northern metropolitan area cannot be a business or a merger.