Polarising Chief Executive CY Leung has courted controversy yet again after he claimed that a family of five could survive on HKD9,000 a month with cash to spare.
On Sunday, the CE shared a post on his Facebook page, in which he recounted his experience at a “poverty workshop” jointly organised by the Hong Kong United Foundation and Junior Chamber International Hong Kong.
Leung’s first sentence reads, “The gap between rich and poor is large in Hong Kong”, which is pretty much the last non-controversial part of the post.
“I and nearly 200 secondary students were divided into groups of four or five, and role-played as a family living in poverty. In my group, I was a single father with four dependents spread across three generations.
“I earned HKD9,000 a month as a dishwasher. Like other groups, we worked hard, paid rent after payday, paid tuition fees, paid for transportation, bought canned food and instant noodles, and through the efforts of the whole family, managed to have a little money left over at the end.”
Leung’s post quickly drew disbelieving comments from netizens, some who said CY was “transcending to Pluto”, in reference to Leung’s “transcendent” status.
Speaking to the Hong Kong Economic Times, dishwasher Ngor Jeh said, “A single mother could support four people on HKD8,000 a month… 16 years ago!”
The single mother recalled how she had to buy bread and fruit that was about to expire, and walked to work in order to scrape enough cash together for occasional treats from McDonald’s for the children.
“If it was so hard for me to support a family of four on HKD8,000 16 years ago, how is it possible that somebody supporting a family of five on HKD9,500 a month could have money left over?”
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