HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL - 2 November 1988
香港立法局———————— 一九八八年十一月二日
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was not to stop the importation of such vegetables from China. They were acting under section 59 of the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance which relates to the examination, seizure and the destruction of food unfit for human consumption. I understand that they felt obliged to detain about seven tonnes of vegetable consignments yesterday because of lack of the appropriate tags or inadequate tags which the branch and the bureau had agreed should be attached to all consignments from yesterday and that the seven tonnes in question were destroyed after the owner had voluntarily surrendered them to the Municipal Services Branch. Returning to Miss LEUNG's question, Sir, each day between 200 and 300 lorries each carrying between 30 and 80 baskets of vegetable depending on the size of the baskets, which means that there could be a total figure of between 6,000 and 24,000 baskets each day passing through our border with Shenzhen. It would neither be practicable nor possible to detain on a long-term basis each and every consignment and have the vegetable tested before it is allowed to enter Hong Kong. It is for this reason, Sir, that we shall have to continue to rely to a very large extent on the co-operation of the Shenzhen authorities and on the effectiveness of their measures to control the problem at source. At the Hong Kong end the Municipal Services Branch has been able to identify the high risk farms in China. I think there are four of them of which one in particular is the major culprit and I am assured by my colleague, the Secretary for Municipal Services, that his branch will step up monitoring of vegetable produced by these farms through the testing of samples taken at the Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Vegetable Market. As regards Miss LEUNG's final question on whether the Government would consider legislative controls I would certainly refer her suggestion to my colleague, the Secretary for Municipal Services, but Sir I must point out that I have been advised that that would not make too great a difference as long as we are unable to have a 100% check on consignments. That is because the additional steps that may be possible through the introduction of legislative controls could include, for example, the requirement that a health certificate be produced for each consignment. But the details to be entered on the health certificates which have to be issued of course by the Chinese authorities would not be readily verifiable by staff of the Municipal Services Branch. At the moment of course under existing legislation the Government has already been empowered to, as I have said earlier, under section 59 of the Ordinance to examine, seize and, if necessary, destroy food suspected to be unfit for human consumption. So that is why I have been advised that it may not make too much difference for legislative controls being introduced.