Two Hong Kong lawmakers have suggested a pay freeze for the city’s civil servants to tackle the ongoing fiscal deficit, ahead of the annual budget speech, set to be delivered at the end of this month.
Lawmakers Michael Tien and Stanley Li on Monday joined a growing list of pro-establishment figures, including former minister Anthony Cheung and lawmakers from the New People’s Party, who called for a salary freeze for civil servants.
Hong Kong is expected to record a fiscal deficit for the third consecutive year, with Finance Secretary Paul Chan estimating that the deficit for the 2024-25 fiscal year will be just below HK$100 billion.
Hong Kong logged a deficit of HK$122 billion and HK$101 billion in the fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively.
Tien, from the political party Roundtable, told an RTHK radio programme on Monday that the salary freeze could save the government up to HK$9 billion in a year, adding that it should also apply to lawmakers and district councillors.
He said the proposal was only for the upcoming fiscal year and pay rise could be resumed afterwards.
The lawmaker also highlighted the above-average pay rise civil servants enjoyed over the past decade, saying there was a need to close down the gap between the public and the private sector.
The Hong Kong government spent HK$156 billion on “staff-related expenditure on the civil service” in 2023-24, up 4.8 percentage points from the year before, according to official figures.
Meanwhile, employees in the private sector had an average of a 3.2 per cent pay rise in 2024, down 0.6 percentage points from the previous year, according to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management.
Speaking in the same programme, Stanley Li of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) said his party also supported the idea of a pay freeze for civil servant as opposed to a suggestion of a pay cut.
“A pay cut will have a larger impact on the morale of civil servants,” he said in Cantonese. “We believe a pay freeze is reasonable as civil servants would have contributed” to tackling to fiscal deficit.
HK$2 transport fare scheme
Tien also suggested on the same radio programme that the government should criminalise the abuse of the HK$2 elderly transport subsidy scheme and adjust the scheme to prevent residents from taking short rides on long-distance routes.
Since the scheme was implemented in 2012, there have been reports of abuse by people using the designated senior travel card to enjoy the HK$2 fare. Meanwhile, elderly people travelling for short distance on longer, and more expensive, bus routes have also caused the government to spend more on the transport subsidy.
The government said it expected to spend HK$6 billion on the scheme in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Tien said that, instead of a flat fare of HK$2 for all public transport, the government could offer an 80 per cent discount for routes that cost more than HK$10 to discourage elderly passengers from taking them for short distances.
Meanwhile, Li suggested implementing sectional fares on bus routes and giving subsidies according to the distance.
But he opposed other suggestions, such as limiting the number of rides, saying that any adjustments should not be confusing to the elderly.
Chan, the financial chief, will deliver the budget on February 26. He is expected to announce measures to cut costs while increasing income for the government.
