Can Carrie Lam keep her deathbed promise to David Akers-Jones by helping Hong Kong’s poor and building more housing?
- A Business Professionals Federation report suggests radical reforms to Hong Kong’s minimum wage, MPF, tax system and housing policy
- Taking on these suggestions would help Chief Executive Carrie Lam keep her promise to the former chief secretary
She recounted visiting the 92-year-old “Chung Suk”, or “Uncle Jones”, in hospital as he succumbed to colon cancer. “He held my hand and raised his voice to say: help the poor and build more housing. And I promised him I would,” she told the congregation in St John’s Cathedral.
Only time will tell whether she will live up to that promise, but it was notable that, even in his final days and after more than three decades in retirement, Sir David’s concern for Hong Kong and its people remained undiluted.
He had many significant roles but, for me, none was more important than his leadership of the Business Professionals Federation through which he channelled many of his keenest community concerns, focused on health care, the elderly, the young, the poor, housing and pensions.
