Government Bureaucracy that Helps No One

Waiting 30 years for government housing! Most people will be retired by then

My hairdresser is a no-nonsense woman in her mid thirties, lives in Yuen Long with her parents, works in a small hair salon in Central, but obviously would prefer to live on her own.

She can't begin to afford buying her own flat, so she applied for government housing. At first she and her older sister were going to apply together, but her older sister was born across the border and in a small village, where no birth certificate was issued and so they couldn't prove they were sisters.

A typical government-housing flat... quite cosy, no?

They asked the housing office if they could do a DNA test and the Housing Department said no. The government won't even let them prove through DNA that they are sisters. Strange bureaucratic reply. No birth certificate, no talk.

As a result they have had to apply separately and I asked my hairdresser how long she would have to wait. "Probably 30 years," she said, not really joking.

Thirty years? She'll be retired by the time she gets government housing!

It's extraordinary how the Hong Kong government doesn't make housing a much bigger priority. Which also explains why young people feel they have no hope in this city when the government doesn't care to help them when housing costs are one of the most expensive in the world.

Meanwhile earlier today the government is bemoaning the fact that income tax paid by 1.9 million residents will be paid late because of the protests. Doesn't the government have a trillion dollars in reserves?

It's not like the government will cease to function without that tax income coming in.

Paul Chan wondering how he can get tax income faster...

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po also bemoaned the fact that the government has made many concessions which will mean a few billion dollars less in the public coffers. 

We should have received our tax bill in September or October, but now it won't be until January or even April till we get those dreaded green envelopes.

But also the government is giving people more time to settle their tax bills too -- up to a year.

Once again may we remind the government why this crisis -- which is far from over by the way -- was started by its leader? If Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor hadn't proposed the extradition bill in the first place, the government would right now be busy counting its tax income and gleefully wondering what to do with it all...