PUBLIC ORDER
including the procurement of drugs by the Department of Health. On a service-wide basis, the department was involved in the revision of the government's stores regulations, an assignment which was nearing completion after years of consultation and deliberation.
In view of increasing emphasis attached to quality assurance by the manufacturing and public sectors, the department conducted a study of certification procedures of the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency.
The department's Advisory Services Group, which provides free and confidential advice to the private sector, responded to requests for assistance from 205 companies in 1991. In many cases, the assistance provided was to help them draw up ethical guidelines for employees and improve control measures for corruption prevention. The group assisted various trades in their attempts of self-regulation. One such example was the assistance given to the Life Underwriters Association in revising its code of ethics.
Community Relations
The Community Relations Department is responsible for educating the public against the evils of corruption and enlisting their support to fight the problem. In doing so, the department also aims to enhance the general level of social ethics and civic behaviour. It uses mass media and personal contact activities in different educational approaches for different target audiences.
For the elections held during the year, the department mounted a multi-media campaign and a series of briefing sessions to advise candidates and voters against election malpractices. In addition, a hotline was set up to handle public enquiries. Special attention was paid to the first-ever direct election to the Legislative Council: each candidate was given a personal copy of an information kit which provided a digest of the main points of the law and their practical applications.
Having developed a broad base of liaison with the business community in recent years, the department embarked on a strategy in 1991 focusing on the role of the chief executives of medium and large-sized companies in taking the lead for corruption prevention within their working environment. As a start, emphasis was placed on the trading and manufacturing sectors which together employ about 1.1 million members of the local work force. Backed by promotional advertising in business newspapers and trade journals, specially-trained ICAC staff made personal visits to the chief executives to offer ready- made preventive packages which could be easily adapted for use in their companies. They could also choose to join a Business Community Participation Programme under which they would design their own preventive activities and would receive a small ICAC subsidy towards the cost of these activities.
The department used the less labour-intensive method of direct mail to put the message across to the much larger number of small-sized firms. The trading and manufacturing sectors are a huge entity with over 120 000 establishments. The department will sustain its efforts to reach as many as possible over the next few years while making sure that preventive education for other sectors such as finance and building construction is also adequately maintained.
For government organisations and public bodies, the department conducted talks and seminars for a total of 22 554 existing staff and new recruits. The objective was to inform them about the law and to enhance their awareness against bribery in the course of public duty.
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