Hardly Helping the Poor

A "coffin-sized" home is the situation for many living below the poverty line

When Leung Chun-ying was running for chief executive, he pledged to tackle poverty issues, giving the impression he is a man of the people, unlike his then competitor Henry Tang Ying-yen who seemed to be with the elitist crowd.

But four years after Leung became the leader of Hong Kong, the number of poor has increased to a six-year high under his watch.

How did that happen?

Leung's pledge to fight poverty has had no effective results

The Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2015 was released yesterday, and it showed 20,000 more people were living below the poverty line in 2015 compared to the year before, a total of 1.34 million.

The poverty line was set up in 2013 and calculated as half the median household income according to household size. Those living below it are considered poor, even taking into account government subsidies and handouts.

Around 477,500 are categorized as "working poor" families, of which 14,200 are degree holders.

The elderly at 65 years and older are most vulnerable, as one in three live in poverty, while one and two-person households are likely the elderly and single-parent families.

Social workers criticized the government for just throwing money at the problem instead of trying to get at the root cause, such as providing more low-income housing, and not taking into account actual living costs.

One in three elderly live in poverty in Hong Kong

"The current poverty line for a one-person household, HK$3,800, is too low. How could someone earning HK$4,000 per month not be considered poor?" asked veteran social worker Ho Hei-wah of the Society for Community Organization.

"A coffin-sized home already costs them some HK$1,000. How could they live with the rest of the money?"

At the Commission on Poverty summit on Saturday, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-nor tried to spin the results as saying the the poverty rate was "stable", much to the dismay of social workers, who find it bizarre that even though the government claims to be working hard for the poor, its efforts have hardly made a dent into trying to reduce the poverty rate.

As this latest report is seen as a kind of report card on Leung's performance as chief executive, the results are shockingly bad. Can we not have some long-term goals on how we can help the poor live better lives than just think about short-term solutions?

Beijing Reveals Liaison Office's Flaws

Beijing found some issues with how the liaison office here is run

It looks like all is not well with the Liaison Office in Sai Ying Pun, known as the one that rules Hong Kong from Western district.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection revealed a number of issues following a recent inspection of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council.

Chief inspector Ning Yanling said the party's leadership in the office is not strong enough, nor is the implementation of the central leadership's decisions firm. Also, the choice and the use of personnel is not satisfactory, there is no timely reshuffling of grassroots personnel, there is loose and lax management of the party, and they took up more office space than allowed.

Zhang Xiaoming is the current director of the liaison office

The office should strengthen its leadership and "push forward new developments in the work on Hong Kong and Macau", and strictly adhere to political discipline," Ning said.

The commission also said the office should give "corruption risks" existing in the leadership and their subordinates high priority, and set up the monitoring and use of funds, he said.

At the same time the report acknowledged the office "had made certain achievements in implementing the party's basic requirement regarding the work on Hong Kong and Macau, and strengthening party discipline".

While no officials were singled out in the report, Wang Guangya, the director of the office, was quoted as saying the office accepted the feedback push forward new developments in its work, and implement the recommendations of the inspectors.

To add to the findings, Sing Pao, which has regularly covered the operations at the office, ran a front page story on this most recent report.

Wang Guangya acknowledged mistakes and vowed to reform

It cited an earlier commentary from the paper that suggested the office had been corrupt ever since the time of former director Liao Hui, who is a mentor of current office head Zhang Xiaoming. Liao is considered quite influential in political and business circles.

It seems the liaison office here is run as its own fiefdom and not necessarily following Beijing's orders. We're all curious to know what kind of corruption is happening in the office, money not properly spent.

Does this have to do with filling the coffers of pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong to help them in their campaigning and political activities?

And taking up more office space? What does that mean? Did someone spread out their stuff on other desks they weren't supposed to use?

It's all so intriguing.

The office is scrambling to fix errors of its ways and from now on we may see a change in how it deals with Hong Kong politics. More restraint? Picking its fights carefully?

We shall see...

Clearing the Issue on Windows

The Philippine consulate wants to ban domestic helpers from cleaning windows

There have been far too many incidents of maids -- oh I mean domestic helpers -- falling to their deaths to clean windows for their employers.

Either the bosses are not giving advice on how to clean the windows safely, or they are expecting every inch of the windows to be clean, which in some cases is absolutely impossible without falling out.

I periodically clean the windows of my flat, but there are some areas I cannot reach at all and just have to leave them as is. Nothing's perfect.

Cleaning windows outside is dangerous at any height

But alas, there have been several cases of maids falling out of windows only to die, and that's not worth it at all.

Despite complaints from the Philippine government through the consulate here, the Hong Kong government up to now has done nothing about it.

It was only when the consulate announced earlier this week that a new contractual clause with Filippino domestic helpers state that cleaning the outside of windows was no longer part of their duties did the Hong Kong government freak out and ask for time to figure out how to solve the matter.

So the fact that several domestic helpers have died because they fell out of windows while working in Hong Kong was not enough of an impetus for the government to look into the matter and perhaps discuss the issue with the Philippine consulate?

It seems civil servants also expect super clean windows even though the view outside is basically smog anyway.

The ban was supposed to take effect on Sunday, but after the Hong Kong government pleaded for time, did the consulate postpone the ban until November 14.

Matthew Cheung needs more time to sort out the issue?

Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung welcomed the delay, saying more time was needed to work out the new measures as well as seek a balance between the interests of employers and domestic helpers.

What's there to sort out? This is a matter of safety; everyone will have to just deal with either cleaning the exterior of windows themselves, figure out a procedure and tools to clean them safely, or leave them as is.

By the same token the Philippine government should have discussed the issue with the Hong Kong authorities before instituting the ban.

In Singapore, domestic helpers there haven't had to clean the exterior of windows since 2012, unless the employer is present to supervise the work and a grille is installed and locked at all times during the process.

If and when this contractual clause comes into effect, it could also lead to other countries to have similar clauses in their domestic helpers' contracts, like Indonesia.

As many of these domestic helpers are the main bread winners back home, making their work more safe would be a win-win for everyone. And anyways, haven't we already developed self-cleaning window technology?

Tennis Star Serves Hong Kong Elderly

Johanna Konta (right) serving a meal to a senior at Food Angel's canteen

It's nice to see top international athletes doing some charitable work in Hong Kong.

The other day British No. 1 women's player Johanna Konta who is here for the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open 2016, visited Food Angel's canteen in Sham Shui Po.

She along with Chinese players Liu Chang, Zheng Saisai, Lu Jiajing and Nao Hibino helped serve fish fillets and tofu in a crab meat sauce to elderly seniors in the area.

Konta was very happy to help out in her small way, saying, "It was a wonderful cause to be distributing food that would otherwise be wasted to people who really need it".

Food Angel rescues some 4 tons of most raw ingredients daily, from vegetables to meats and seafood, and turns them into 6,000 nutritious meals for the underprivileged.

I visited Food Angel last year and am impressed by how they can do this in such a small kitchen, and they invite volunteers to come and help out whenever they can. Upstairs is a canteen where elderly residents in the area usually come for lunch and dinner to socialize and have a healthy meal they otherwise could not afford.

Unfortunately there is only so much food the charity can rescue each day, and the government isn't doing enough to legislate supermarkets and wet markets to donate their unsold produce to places like Food Angel instead of dumping them into landfills.

However, for now, Food Angel's got it right, by getting as much publicity as possible in the hopes that greater public awareness will hopefully inspire more people to help out, and get more businesses behind them.

For more information go to Food Angel's website.