Casual wear and a suitable indoor temperature were among the
topics during the chief executive's question and answer session at
the Legislative Council (LegCo) yesterday.
Apart from responding to the July 1 march and the remarks of
former senior officials for the first time, Donald Tsang also took
on the question of environmental protection and traditional Chinese
medicine.
On the air pollution, Tsang was buoyant about the blue sky and
white clouds that summer was bringing because emission volumes had
greatly decreased in recent years.
He said power generation plants were the biggest source of
pollution in Hong Kong and the government would include emission
reduction clauses in the new Scheme of Control agreements with the
two power companies.
"The government will ask them to reduce emissions by and large.
We will also introduce penalties to stringently punish any
excessive emissions," he told the chamber.
The CE also noted air conditioning accounted for one-third of
the power consumption in Hong Kong.
Keep 25.5 C indoors
"I guess the temperature here in this chamber is 22 C. If this
is raised to 25.5 C as proposed by the government, we can save 1
billion units of electricity a year.
"In fact, we can put on casual wears in the summer, as the
government has fixed 25.5 C as the right temperature. We are
promoting a casual wear campaign among the civil servants."
Legislative Council President Rita Fan, however, corrected the
CE and said the chamber temperature was 24 C. "We can easily switch
it to 25.5 C, but we will be sweating if we stay here for a long
time," she amused. "Our air conditioning system is a very old one
but we will have it thoroughly cleaned in the summer."
The CE admitted that the government officials would not put on
casual wears in the Legislative Council unless a motion to this
effect was passed.
Civic Party's Alan Leong questioned why the government had
allowed certain cigarette manufacturers to continue to use such
words as "mild" or "light" on the packs.
If the government feels it has strong grounds to ban such words
that will mislead people, it shall resort to legal action and let
the court make a decision, Alan said.
Tsang replied that the government could face legal action from
the cigarette manufacturers if it banned such words. The government
has weighed the case very carefully to adopt the "grandfathering"
method, which only seeks to ban such words six months after the
smoking ban comes into effect, the CE said.
"We should not pass the buck to the court if we do not stand a
high chance of winning the case."
Kevin Li, from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and
Progress of Hong Kong, asked why listed Chinese medicine
practitioners were not allowed to issue sick leave
certificates.
Tsang said over 500 listed practitioners had become registered
practitioners through examinations in recent years.
The government will take more positive steps to help the
3,000-plus listed practitioners reach the required level through
examinations, he added.
On the long-awaited Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, he said the
preparation work had reached the final stage.
"The bridge involves jurisdiction and the waters of three
governments. But, we have not spent much time on this. Look how
much time we have spent on the Tamar development project," he said
in a lighter vein.
Admitting that planning deficiencies in the Tin Shui Wai and
Tung Chung new towns resulted in shortage of recreational
amenities, he said the causes of suicide tragedies, however, were
complicated, and vowed to adjust the planning policy.
(China Daily HK Edition July 11, 2006)