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LCQ19 : No shortage of Government projects
1. LCQ19 : No shortage of Government projects Following
is a question by the Hon HO Chung-tai and a written reply by the Secretary for
Works, Mr Lee Shing-see, at the Legislative Council meeting today (May 8) : Question:
The unemployment statistics for the third quarter of last year have recorded an
unemployment rate of over 10% for the construction industry, which is the highest
among all industries and trades, and this is partly attributable to redundancies
in construction companies or the closing down of such companies, as well as the
Government's failure to implement new public works projects on schedule. In this
connection, will the Government inform this Council: (a) of the number of construction
companies closed down in each of the past three years; (b) of the number of new
public works projects scheduled for implementation in each of the past three years
and, among these projects, the number of those which did not proceed as scheduled;
(c) whether it has assessed if there is any direct relationship between the Government's
failure to implement its projects on schedule and the closing down of construction
companies; and (d) of the number of public works projects to be implemented in
the coming two years? Reply: Madam President, (a) The numbers of construction
companies that were wound up by the court in the past three years are as follows:
| Year | Number
of construction companies wound up by the court |
| 1999 | 39 |
| 2000 | 48 |
| 2001 | 55 |
(b) The number
of public works projects originally planned to start and the number of projects
which actually commenced in the past three years are as follows:
| Financial
Year | Number
of projects planned to start in the Printed Estimates | Number
of projects in (b) which actually commenced within the year | Number
of additional projects not in (b) which commenced within the year | Total
number of projects which commenced with the year |
| (a) | (b) | (c) | (d) | (e)=(c)+(d) |
| 1999-2000 | 114 | 68 | 39 | 107 |
| 2000-2001 | 85 | 53 | 45 | 98 |
| 2001-2002 | 105 | 77 | 33 | 110 |
It can be seen that
whilst some projects were delayed, we had been generally able to expedite the
start of some other projects to make up for the loss. (c) The factors leading
to the winding up of a company could be many and varied. As most construction
companies also undertake a wide range of private sector works besides public works
contracts, we do not consider that the Government's public works programme has
any direct relationship to the winding up of construction companies. Moreover,
the table at (b) above shows that there has been no shortage of Government projects
in the past three years compared with our original targets. (d) We have scheduled
to commence 113 public works projects in the current financial year under the
Capital Works Reserve Fund as detailed in the Printed Estimates for 2002/2003.
For 2003/2004, we expect to commence about 120 projects. [Source:
Works Bureau, 8 May 2002] | 
