A Hong Kong newspaper “misunderstood” her speech on the Basic Law in saying that she did not support a basic law article on public finance, said Chief Secretary of Administration Carrie Lam. Lam spoke at the airport before she left on a visit to Vietnam.
On Saturday, Ming Pao quoted Lam as saying that protecting the Basic Law does not mean one needs to agree with every article, and that she did not agree with Article 107 on public finance. It also said that Lam expressed doubts over keeping the expenditure within the limits of revenue and proposed the use of Hong Kong’s reserves.
“I was very confused at the time why there would be such a headline,” said the chief secretary.
According to Lam, she said “for example, I do not agree with Article 107,” at a youth forum on the Basic Law on Friday, but she was not using “I” to refer to herself. Rather, she was referring to those who challenged the Basic Law.
Lam said she contacted Ming Pao to tell them that they had misunderstood her speech.
Not running for Chief Executive
In response to questions about whether she would run for Chief Executive, she said that “there are some who think that I have a lot of ambition, or think that I want to run for the Chief Executive position… I want to tell these people that they are wasting their time, because on this issue, my stance is very clear.”
“If there are any people continuously trying to attack the government’s determination to rule, creating rifts between important officials in the government, and between officials and civil servants, this will actually only increase the chaos in society and will directly affect the space through which the government is able to do practical things. For me, I don’t really care – everyone has heard me say that after these four years as the Chief Secretary of Administration, I am invincible,” she added.
She said that she would continue to do practical things for Hong Kong given every small or large opportunity in the coming ten months.
