Government Expenditure For Claimants Is Over $600 Million
Mar 30th, 2015 | Immigration, Media, Rejection | Comment
Hong Kong’s most vulnerable holed up in squalid slums
Mar 29th, 2015 | Food, Housing, Media, Welfare | Comment
Hong Kong’s Zero Recognition Rate: A Mystery in Numbers
Mar 24th, 2015 | Immigration, Media, Rejection | Comment
Tom Grundy & Coconuts visit the refugee slums
Mar 23rd, 2015 | Food, Housing, Media | Comment
Tom Grundy is an independent multimedia journalist with 11k followers on Twitter and 350,000 unique visitors to his website Hong Wrong.
Coconuts Media is a local city website network that harnesses social media and video to amplify coverage of urban areas in Asia. Currently they reach over 3 million monthly unique visitors on Coconuts.co and average 20,000 to 30,000 views per video on their official Youtube partner channel Coconuts TV.
Vision First awaits their reports on what they witnessed on outreach with us in the refugee slums.
Refugee Union protests at Government House Open Day
Mar 16th, 2015 | Media, Refugee Community, Welfare | Comment
Refugee Union Press Notifcation 13 March 2015
Refugee protest at Government House
The Standard “Protesters pruned as crowds flock to gardens”
Transcript of Cable TV report on shrunken food supplies
Mar 11th, 2015 | Crime, Food, Media, Welfare | Comment
Translation of the Cable TV report on shrunken food assistance to refugees, aired on 9 March 2015.
There are 7,500 refugees and torture claimants in Hong Kong who receive government assistance through the International Social Service (ISS-HK). However, the food rations they collect every month are ‘shrunken’. We investigated how much the ‘shrinkage’ is and where the missing money goes.
These 2 bags are the 10-days food collection of Hassan. Hassan came from Bangladesh to Hong Kong ten years ago and he receives government assistance as a torture claimant. Every month he goes to one of ISS [appointed grocery shops] three times to collect his food allowance.
Currently the Social Welfare Department outsources the refugee welfare service to International Social Service (ISS-HK) who arrange the food packages for 7,500 refugees, but the food collected is found to be ‘shrunken’. So, how much is the food worth? Our reports took the food to the market to check the value. The retail price of these [two bags of] food is $308.50, or $90 less than the price official price of $400.
Our reporter followed Hassan for a month. At the beginning of every month he goes to ISS office to fill in forms or his preferred food. But the forms do not indicate the price and the case worker does not inform the price of the food items he selected. He doesn’t know if it worth $1,200 [as indicated in official government communication].
Our reporter took his food packages to check at market prices. The total price of his monthly food was $993.30, or $200 less than his $1200 food allowance. Also the weight of the food Hassan collected is less than what he selected in the forms. Our reporter also found that other refugees receive ‘shrunken’ food collections. One refugees’ two bags collection was worth $320.90 only, and another refugee’s collection was worth $324.90. Both were about 20% less than [the food allowance].
International Social Service pointed out that if the $1,200 food subsidy is not used up, it will be returned to the government. However, Social Welfare Department reported that between the years 2010 and 2012 it disbursed 320 million HKD to ISS-HK. After the contract finished, ISS-HK returned 6.4 million HKD to the government as a reimbursement of administrative fees.
So, where is the remaining money? Our reporter asked ISS-HK again and they said the remaining money will be used for new collections [in subsequent months] until it is used up. And about the ‘shrinkage’ of the food, ISS-HK said refugees can weigh it themselves and if it is less than the standard amount they can ask to receive more.
Social Welfare Department said they will monitor the service quality of ISS-HK and how public money is used. Recently they also decided to change from in-kind food assistance to a coupon system in the new tender.
i-Cable: Value of refugee food assistance does not add up
Mar 9th, 2015 | Crime, Food, Media, Welfare | Comment
