Seniors voice anger after LegCo fails to approve funding for old age allowance

Hong Kong seniors blasted legislators on Wednesday over the Legislative Council's (LegCo) failure to bring to a vote on the issue of funding the government's proposed Old Age Living Allowance on Tuesday night.

Lee Yick-chin, a 70-year-old electronics merchant, said funding for the supplemental living allowance for some 400,000 needy seniors should be approved as soon as possible. He said the legislative council was "not helpful" and was engaged in "playing tricks" to thwart the government.

Another 60-year-old retired salesman surnamed Yin, said though he isn't eligible for the allowance, the LegCo needs to pass the measure quickly, instead of dragging out debate, intended to provide a HK$2,200 ($283.87) monthly allowance to seniors in economic straits. Yin said that the lawmakers should aware that how helpful can one month's allowance be to elderly.

The government said on Wednesday that it will make no request to bring forward the funding discussion to the next scheduled Finance Committee meeting on Friday, though committee chairman Tommy Cheung Yu-yan gave the government the green light to jump the queue and make another attempt to persuade legislators that the measure was desperately needed.

Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung appealed to lawmakers again to pass the funding as soon as possible for the benefit of nearly a half million elderly living below or near the "poverty line".

After Tuesday's failure, the old age allowance will not come forward again before Nov 16, when the committee will continue debating the issue.

Chueng said the original plan was to pass the funding by the end of October so that the allowance could be delivered to the first group of 290,000 elderly, who have already qualified, after making a declaration of assets. Payments were to have started at the beginning of next March, but were to be backdated to this October.

Cheung expressed his deep regret over the delay of the funding, saying that the failure to stick to the scheduled time has delayed the entire program. "The later the funding gets approved, the longer the delay will be," he said.

In response to some suggestions to backdate the allowance to October, no matter when it is approved, Julia Leung Fung-yee, acting secretary for financial services and the treasury, said according to fiscal discipline, the effective date of a policy cannot be determined arbitrarily but is required to adhere to established principles.

"In past years, the effective dates of welfare-related policies have been set on the exact day when the policies received approval from the Finance Committee, or later. Normally, it has no retroactive effect," said Leung.

Leung said arrangement of backdating the elderly allowance to the beginning of the month when the funding is granted by the committee is a technical adjustment to make it easier for seniors. That arrangement would not violate fiscal discipline, added Leung.

Leung also pointed out that normally, policies with retroactive effect are those that require periodic adjustment, such as the salary increases for civil servants every year.

Lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who supports the funding, endorsed the government's decision not to backdate the allowance to October. "If the government created a precedent to backdate the payment, it would become extremely difficult for the government to backdate the related fiscal expenditures if the funding were delayed by filibustering for one or two years," said Ip.

Legislator Ip Kwok-him also expressed regret over the failure of the meeting on Tuesday and said he hopes the funding will be passed on Nov 16. Ip, from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said the party will support the funding of the allowance no matter when the government decided to backdate the allowance.

stushadow@chinadailyhk.com