The expenditure was mentioned in the gazette within a document named “consolidated statement of receipts and payments for the year ended 31 March 2023”, with the HK$5 billion noted as “non-recurrent appropriation to a special fund to meet the expenditure for safeguarding national security.”

Hong Kong previously set aside HK$8 ­billion for safeguarding national security in December 2020, with the city’s ­finance minister not saying how or on what the money will be spent.

At that time, the document included a footnote that cited the national security law and stated that “this HK$8 billion provision is the above-mentioned special fund for meeting the expenditure for safeguarding national security in coming years”.

Unlike three years ago, there was no mention of how long the HK$5 billion funding can be used for.

The document only noted that the city’s national security law provides that the finance secretary shall, upon approval of the chief executive, appropriate from the general revenue a special fund to meet the expenditure for safeguarding national security and approve the establishment of relevant posts, which are not subject to any restrictions in the relevant provisions of the laws in force in the region.

According to government documents outlining the receipts and payments for the nine months that ended on December 31 last year, no additional funding was allocated for safeguarding national security.