Chief Executive John Lee said on Tuesday that government departments need to step up efforts to prevent abuse of a transport subsidy for elderly people.

Before going into this week's Executive Council meeting, Lee told the media there are suspicions that some people are taking advantage of the HK$2 per trip arrangement for those aged 60 and above.

“What is most important at this stage is to ensure that the system is not abused because looking at the spending patterns in some of the cases, there are suspicions that there are abusive acts,” he said.

“And this is important that we will step up enforcement action so that all the abusers are properly dealt with so that we will have a strong deterrent effect to ensure that people really make good use of the fare concession scheme.”

Lee added that the government will roll out publicity campaigns in the hope of encouraging proper usage of the scheme.