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Hong Kong lawmakers call on city’s leader to do more in coronavirus fight and help struggling residents at hearing on policy address
- Legislative Council debates passage of formal motion of thanks for chief executive’s policy address, a traditional symbolic gesture
- Lawmakers call for heightened mandatory coronavirus testing and more financial assistance for the unemployed
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Hong Kong’s pro-establishment lawmakers on Wednesday urged the city’s leader to do more to alleviate residents’ hardship and contain the coronavirus pandemic, as they went over the contents of her policy address rolled out in November.
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The Legislative Council kicked off a three-day meeting to debate the passage of a traditional motion of thanks, which was introduced on Wednesday by House Committee chairwoman Starry Lee Wai-king, who also heads the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), the city’s largest pro-Beijing party.
The annual tradition is a formal acknowledgement of the city leader’s speech laying out his or her policy for the year, though it has no bearing on actual implementation.
In November, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor unveiled a lengthy policy blueprint aimed at rebuilding confidence in a city beset by political turmoil and financial uncertainty, promising to restore social and constitutional order and revive the ailing economy. The policy address came weeks after the mass resignation of opposition lawmakers in protest against the government’s disqualification of four of their colleagues earlier that month.
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At the Legco meeting on Wednesday, Lee said that while her party was in favour of passing the motion of thanks, officials must step up their game in fighting Covid-19, and help those facing financial hardship amid the city’s economic recession.
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