The government's amendment of its poorly thought-out suspension of the levy on employers of foreign domestic helpers has not ended the confusion or the controversy.
The acknowledgement by authorities that bosses can, through timing the renewal of contracts with their maids carefully, get out of paying the HK$400-a-month fee for almost four years rather than the two years announced originally shows how ill-conceived the arrangements are. It is a further justification for ending the farcical situation and scrapping immediately a payment that should have been done away with four years ago.
Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen originally announced September 1 as the starting date for the suspension when he unveiled a package to ease the impact of inflation 13 days ago. Unscrupulous employers immediately began sacking maids so that they could sign new contracts that would take advantage of the measure. Some domestic helpers lost their jobs and others were left on tenterhooks as to the security of their employment.
The suspension of the levy will now begin tomorrow. Employment contracts can be renewed and the starting date brought forward without maids first having to leave Hong Kong, as immigration rules at present require. This is a sensible step to provide maids with some protection. But the damage has already been done. Under the new arrangements, an employer can bring the signing date of a contract forward to tomorrow to benefit from the two-year levy suspension and gain a further two-year exemption by renewing the contract prematurely a second time just before the suspension ends. They would not pay the levy for 47 months. This does not appear to be what Mr Tsang intended. He could have prevented the confusion and anguish it caused by implementing it immediately.
The levy funds a retraining scheme for local workers. Such a project is worthwhile with our fast-ageing population. But funding for the programme should come, as it does for other government schemes, from the bulging general budget, not a special fund.
