Dear Ms Christine Loh,

We are keenly impressed by your article “Building on solid information” published in the South China Morning Post on December 24, 2003, and write to express our views on some of the points you make in the hope that with your help, our voice on the need to improve the Land Information System (LIS)/Land Administration System (LAS) in Hong Kong, which our Institute has been advocating, may be better heard in appropriate quarters. You rightly point out that “-----there are many policy areas where it would be better for the government to drop existing plans and start again. Bureaucrats in Hong Kong are generally reluctant to revise projects even when circumstances have changed. As a result, an enormous amount of energy is exerted to defend outdated plans.”

 In the area of land administration, with which our Institute is concerned, the HKSAR Government is particularly notorious. It has a tradition of segregating governmental institutions, which have land administration responsibilities. Therefore, whenever a private body or the Government itself wants to take a decision that requires different land administration input and support, information will have to be sought or obtained from many different government offices or departments. Take for example, a private housing project or the construction of a town park, plans and information will have to be sought from the Planning Department, the Lands Department, the Land Registry, and information about the underground strata from Drainage Services Department and Buildings Department. A great deal of coordinating effort is required and time which is usually of the essence is thus wasted.  These tedious and separate inquiries have to be made about relevant spatial /cadastral information, because the HKSAR is still lagging far behind in its LIS /LAS. We are aware that the present diverse information arrangements have been well established politically and historically and it would be difficult to alter them.

As a matter of fact, for the past three years, our Institute has been facing similar bureaucratic hurdles when we tried to alert the Government of the global modernisation of the LIS/LAS, which would make the Information Technology 21 Strategy more open, integrated, accessible, transparent and complete. (Attached is a copy of our recent submission on the “Public consultation on Review of the Draft 2004 IT Strategy”)

We also concur with your view that “The Planning Department is currently conducting public consultation on its "Hong Kong 2030 Planning Vision and Strategy". However, insufficient thinking has obviously gone into the preparation of several proposals.” In the Public Consultation Stage 3 of the "Hong Kong 2030 Planning Vision and Strategy", on the one hand, the Government has an overarching goal to achieve sustainable development.

On the other hand, the Government took the following bureaucratic stand in replying to our Institute’s suggestion in the Public Consultation Stage 2 of the "Hong Kong 2030 Planning Vision and Strategy".,

Six United Nation Agencies (including the UN Director for Sustainable Development), Federation of International Surveyors ( an UN-recognised Non-Government Organisation) and World Bank confirmed the pressing need of an LIS/LAS to manage the competing economic, environmental and social priorities that constitute Sustainable Development. Undeniably it requires significant resources to rectify or “to drop existing plans and start again.” However, it will cost even more not to alter them as they :

(a)   fail to meet the great public demands for rapid access to relevant and correct information ;

(b)   have caused confusion resulting in wrong decisions and undesirable outcomes in some of the recent socio- economic policies, responsible for being inequitable, lacking transparency & accessibility; and.

(c)   have resulted in duplication of efforts, unnecessary additional costs, inaccuracies/inconsistencies in the data.

The central issue is not whether HKSAR can afford such a system, but whether HKSAR can afford to live without one. Although LIS/LAS is expensive to set up and to keep uptodate, a good LIS/LAS can benefit the HKSAR’s administration efficiency and effectiveness that would significantly outweigh the costs in the long run.We maintain that Sustainable Development and extensive private participation must go hand in hand in this era of IT Revolution, Globalisation, Economic Transformation and rapid Urbanisation.

For example, the formulation and the implementation of the nature conservation policy would require « extensive private participation and also  the LIS/ LAS to backup. We have also expressed our views in this regard in the recent “Public Consultation on the Review of the Nature Conservation Policy”.

In short, we share your concern as expressed in the captioned article and we certainly support any efforts towards building up an integrated, accurate, accessible, and transparent information system that will be able to provide a high quality of life to the HKSAR community.

We will be glad to discuss further with you or your representatives to establish a common platform or to find out the best way forward.

Yours truly,

Kwok Gong Lut

Dean, Science & Research Faculty

Hong Kong Institute of Land Administration.

Contact: Kwok Gong Lut

Mobile Phone:91688222

E-Mail: gkwok@i-cable.com or kgl@hkila.org.hk