Opinion | In a smarter budget, Hong Kong would spend HK$20 billion on buying back Link Reit and improving welfare

The budget unveiled last week was a disappointment, and has proven to the public that Paul Chan Mo-po is the most incapable financial secretary since the handover. With a decent budget surplus of HK$58.7 billion but without a reasonable rationale, he scaled back relief measures and handouts.

Owing to the linked exchange rate system, Hong Kong has no real monetary policy, and fiscal policy is the only aspect where the government can make a difference. However, the conservative leadership has stayed on the beaten path, away from anything that could lead to a breakthrough.

After the brouhaha over last year’s HK$4,000 handout scheme, it should be obvious that Chan is incompetent. He has come up with one bad policy after another.

The new budget proposes allocating HK$20 billion to buy 60 private properties and convert them into welfare facilities including childcare and elderly centres, a proposal that has been widely criticised. When asked why the government was buying, not renting, the properties, Chan said he would keep an open mind and leave it to the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Law Chi-kwong, to explain the details. Chan and Law are two non-experts at policymaking who are bringing the city to the edge of a catastrophe.

The global economy is going downhill, and obviously the property market in Hong Kong is falling. Vacant commercial properties are seen on the busiest streets. Now that the government is proposing buying private properties with public funds in the name of social welfare, it naturally raises questions about whose interests it is serving.