Seven assistants working for two of Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing lawmakers have received annual bonuses of up to 2.5 times their monthly salaries, according to a Ming Pao report.
The bonuses for the seven workers, totalling HK$405,000 last year, were paid from the the expense accounts of functional constituency members Yiu Si-wing and Christopher Cheung Wah-fung.
LegCo’s functional constituency members are elected not on the basis of geographical areas, but by special interest groups. In 2012 Yiu and Cheng were elected by just 523 and 208 votes respectively.
Yiu, a LegCo member under the tourism constituency, handed out bonuses to his four assistants ranging from to 1.2 to 2.5 times their monthly salaries.
The staff member who received the biggest bonus had earlier been given a pay rise, pocketing a total of HK$106,000 in just one month, according to Ming Pao.
Yiu told the newspaper that he had given his assistants the bonuses “to encourage them” as they tended to work overtime. He said he used money from the public carefully and did not make any promises to staff regarding bonuses.
Christopher Cheung, of the financial services constituency, paid his three assistants bonuses from 1.5 to 2 times their monthly salaries, with one member taking home HK$195,000 last September.
Cheung told the paper: “If the expense allowances have not been used up yet, there would be a bonus.”
Lawmakers can each claim a maximum of HK$2.3 million in office operation expenses, including staff salaries, every year.
In a report on expenses reimbursement published by LegCo in May, 60 per cent of full-time assistants working at LegCo in 2013/14 said they took home salaries between HK$5,000 to HK$15,000 per month.
