Lawmakers lament inaction over review of sports club leases
Government criticised for launching lease scrutiny decades after policy commitment
Legislators yesterday criticised the government for not reviewing the system for granting land leases to private sports clubs despite repeated calls.
The Legislative Council's public accounts committee found it "unacceptable and inexcusable" that a review was set up only late last year even though the clubs were holding a "vast amount of land in light of the city's land shortage".
The committee lamented the Home Affairs Bureau's inaction that it said had lasted more than 40 years.
"The committee finds it unacceptable and inexcusable that the [bureau] only started to conduct a comprehensive review of the private recreational lease policy in September 2013, despite the fact that the Executive Council was informed by the administration in 1969 that [the policy] would be reviewed from time to time," committee chairman Abraham Razack told Legco.
The future of some of Hong Kong's best-known and most exclusive clubs is under scrutiny after the Audit Commission urged the government to consider taking back private clubhouses and putting the land to better use.
"The 27 sports clubs hold 320 hectares of land - that's a lot considering today's land shortage," committee vice-chairman Paul Tse Wai-chun said.
