Following is the full text of a speech by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joseph W P Wong, at the Press Conference of "We serve. We share - Civil Service for the Chest" on May 3, 2001:

Dear guests, colleagues and friends from the media,

Thank you for attending the press conference today. I wish to make use of this opportunity to introduce to you the Civil Service Charity Concert which is jointly organised by the Civil Service and the Community Chest this year.

The Civil Service is part of the community, and has played a significant role in giving benevolence to the needy. We organised Civil Service Charity Walk for the Community Chest in 1993, 1995 and 1998 and succeeded in raising $10 million each time.

Charity Concert

Having organised three walks, we and the Community Chest have decided to try out another form of fund-raising activity this year.

We will hold the Civil Service Charity Concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum at 2:45 pm on June 10, 2001 (Sunday). Production will be taken up by the Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), which will broadcast the concert that evening. The concert will feature civil servants and famous singers and artists. These include Chief Secretary Donald TSANG, who will take part in a bow tie competition, and Financial Secretary Antony LEUNG, who will sing with a famous singer. Secretary for Health and Welfare E K YEOH and Director of Home Affairs Shelley Lee will either sing with singers or compete with artists. As for singers and artists, as far as I know, TVB has invited Miss Dodo CHENG to be the compere. A great line-up of popular singers: Mr Leon LAI, Mr Ekin CHENG, Mr Edison CHAN and Miss KOT Ming-fai have thus far agreed to perform. Details of the programme will be announced later.

Tickets for the concert, except for a small portion to be set aside as complimentary tickets, will be distributed to all bureaux and departments for internal sale.

Competitions

Apart from the Charity Concert, we have also organised a number of donation drives, including four competitions in the run-up to the concert: singing, dancing, table tennis and swimming competitions. For entry to these competitions, participants were required to raise a certain amount of money for donation to the Chest. We received about 600 entries. Heats of some of the events have been taking place since late April.

Raffle Tickets

We have also launched raffle tickets for sale at $20 each. Civil Service colleagues and members of the public who purchase the tickets may win marvellous prizes with a total value over $250,000.

Raffle tickets have been on sale in all government departments. I am pleased that some Civil Service staff unions have kindly been lending a helping hand to promote the sale of the tickets. The lucky draw has been scheduled on June 21. Your Support is needed

I am confident that with the active participation and full support of our Civil Service colleagues and members of the public, the fund-raising efforts this year will be more successful than ever. I hope that through the charity event, the public will come to understand that civil servants, whether on duty or not, are caring individuals in serving the community.

Thank you.

Thursday, May 3, 2001