In the face of record high poverty figures, a senior official has done something uncommon for those in officialdom: admitted the government had failed.
Speaking to RTHK, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong conceded past efforts to alleviate poverty in Hong Kong had missed the mark.
Figures released last week by the government’s Poverty Commission showed as much.
According to the stats, more than 1.37 million Hongkongers were living below the poverty line in 2017.
In other words, about 20.1 percent of Hong Kong’s population are living on less than US$511 per month.
Law said he believed new measures, allowances for the elderly and families introduced earlier this year, would begin to have an impact, though improvements wouldn’t be reflected in statistics until next year.
The official’s acknowledgement that things hadn’t been handled well contrasted sharply with an analysis by the city’s Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung who said last week’s figures showed the “increased effectiveness” of the government’s efforts.
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