Latest news with #MichaelTien
RTHK
28-05-2025
- Business
- RTHK
Tien not on board with MTR over need for shutdown
Tien not on board with MTR over need for shutdown Michael Tien said he didn't think it was necessary to shut down the entire Tseung Kwan O line on Thursday. File photo: RTHK A lawmaker has questioned why the MTR Corporation had to shut down the entire Tseung Kwan O line last Thursday, when power and signalling failures halted services for five hours starting from the evening rush hour. Roundtable's Michael Tien quoted the railway company as telling him that it couldn't switch to manual operation and use the one available track for trains to go both ways because the section was still running on the old signalling system. Tien, who chaired the Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation before the merger of the two rail companies, said he didn't find the explanation acceptable. "When you look at the past two, three years, service disruptions didn't affect the whole Tsuen Wan and Island lines – with both of them also running on the old signalling system," he told RTHK's In the Chamber programme. "They just switched to manual. "The design is that, once the automated system isn't safe enough, you can go manual so that the trains would go at a slower speed." The government has said the MTR has to spend more than HK$19 million on passenger rebates because of the service disruption. As a result of the Tseung Kwan O stoppage and two others earlier in February and April, the MTRC will be having a day of half-priced fares on a Saturday or Sunday. Tien said he found it "a bit funny" that passengers across the entire network would benefit, when it was mostly those taking the Tseung Kwan O line trains that bore the brunt of the shutdown.
South China Morning Post
12-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong lawmakers slam HK$20 billion welfare property plan as ‘failed policy'
Hong Kong lawmakers have labelled the government's HK$20 billion (US$2.6 billion) plan to buy properties for social welfare purposes as one of the biggest 'failed policies', citing that only up to HK$240 million has been spent on five premises over the past five years. Advertisement The government had earlier decided to downsize the scheme to HK$5 billion, saying it would not be 'suckers' in deals with landlords even if there was an urgent need for places for social welfare. The Labour and Welfare Bureau on Monday said in a Legislative Council panel meeting that the Social Welfare Department had considered 191 sale proposals as of March 31 this year and bought only five premises at about HK$240 million under the scheme launched in 2020. The expenditure represented just 1.3 per cent of the original HK$20 billion earmarked by Finance Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po in 2019, for a plan to ease a long-term shortage of space for the elderly and children by providing service facilities to about 86,000 people. 'This policy has been one of the most failed policies in recent years,' lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun said. 'The policy means you tell people you want to buy something while showing them what's in your coffers. How much do you expect them to offer?' Advertisement He said the policy did not allow the government to report to Legco about each property deal with landlords. He said he had already warned the authorities at the time that they had to study first using government vacant premises instead of buying on the market.
