Don't increase government service charges: DAB
The DAB on Thursday urged the government not to increase the price of public services, saying doing so would add burden on people who are already facing many challenges. The Financial Secretary, Paul Chan, earlier said that it is time to review long-frozen charges for services that do not reflect their real cost. But legislator Holden Chow said members of his party have told the minister ahead of next month's budget that that is not the way to tackle the fiscal deficit. "We believe [the fiscal deficit] is only transitional. We have a strong financial foundation, we still have our edge under One Country, Two Systems. For this reason, we believe that the government shouldn't take serious austerity measures because the grassroots suffer a lot," he said. But DAB chairman Gary Chan also said the government is in no position to give people lots of sweeteners, given its financial situation. To boost public coffers, Chan Hok-fung, another DAB lawmaker, said the authorities can put public flats up for sale. He said selling 230,000 government rental flats over the next decade would generate HK$100 billion of revenue. Meanwhile, Chow said his party also proposed the government scrap all remaining property market cooling measures. "In the past, the purpose of having the additional stamp duty was to clamp down on speculation in the property market. But it's no longer applicable now," he said. The government partially eased those measures in October, halving the Buyer's Stamp Duty and New Residential Stamp Duty to 7.5 percent. The Special Stamp Duty, meanwhile, now only applies to people selling property within two years of its purchase, rather than three.