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ing, however, I would like to pay my tribute to the Members and Staff of the Estimates Select Committee for producing this comprehensive document which I know from previous experience represents long hours of arduous sessions.
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI :-Mr. Chairman, the Estimates that lie on the table to-day are the greatest possible testimony to the development of this Council over the past few years. Dr. Lee has mentioned the creation of 50 new posts for Assistant Health Inspectors and Mr. Au has shown how our Estimates have risen with the expansion of our work even over the last three or four years. When I first joined this Council in 1952, meetings lasted I think under five minutes and if I remember rightly Select Committees were at the most only a dozen. In those days we were nothing more than a glorified Sanitary Board and some Members at least may recall the uproar that occurred at my suggestion that consideration be given to Council housing schemes. To-day, we have under our control directly the Resettlement Department and indirectly, as Members of the Housing Authority, the whole of the low cost housing programme of which a start has been made in North Point, Cadogan Street, So Uk and the Clearwater Bay Road. Parks and playgrounds have expanded enormously, the problem of hawking has been approached with realism, air-conditioning in places of public entertainment is shortly to be under our supervision and the regular Sanitary Services themselves have been expanded to cope with this enormous city of ours.
All Members of Council it is conceded at once have contributed towards this expansion, but in my opinion it would not have taken place had the representative basis of this Council not been widened by the introduction of a number of elected seats during the past years. We, on the Reform Club, have always pressed for more elected representation of the people of Hong Kong on this Council and in my opinion the Estimates to-day justify our claim that elected representation on the Councils of this Colony will bring the Government of the Colony in closer touch with the citizens whom we serve.
MR. H. CHEONG-LEEN :-Mr. Chairman, when the previous Estimates were laid upon the table last year, my Civic Association colleague, Dr. P. F. Woo, had expressed his dissatisfaction with the system of examination and training methods of the Health Inspectorate.
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I am now glad to see that certain improvements in the system are coming into force as a result of departmental re-examination of the method of recruitment of Health Inspectors and their training programme and house inspection work.
It is a good thing that the Department has decided to scrap the highly wasteful and expensive policy which required dismissal of a Probationer Health Inspector if he failed the Royal Society of Health examination. The replacement of the post of Probationer Health Inspector by that of Assistant Health Inspector is a sensible proposal. It will enable a man who fails the examination still to continue working in the Department as an Assistant Health Inspector.
Thus a larger number of Assistant Health Inspectors should become available for house inspection work, the public's money spent on trainees will not be wasted, and qualified Health Inspectors can be assigned to more responsible work.
I hope the Chairman will follow the progress of these changes in the system most carefully during this year so that in the light of experience gained the training programme can be further expanded.
With regard to the increase in scavenging staff, I would agree that this year's requests are within reason. But I would suggest that the Chairman should constantly bear in mind that cleaner streets in Hong Kong will not necessarily come about by increases in the number of street-cleaners. When main thoroughfares are being swept four to six times a day and other streets are cleaned at least once daily, one cannot help feeling that increasing the number of the scavenging staff is not the primary answer. Rather it is the active co-operation of the shop-keepers, house-holders, the school-children, and others who have to be patiently educated and persuaded to keep their streets clean.
I notice from the Estimates that the posts of the three Health Inspectors attached to the Resettlement Department will be transferred to the Urban Services Department commencing 1st April, 1959.
While the officers concerned will continue to perform their duties in the Resettlement Estates and Areas as at present, you, Mr. Chairman, will become more directly responsible for resettlement sanitation and cleanliness. It is to be hoped, Sir, that you will keep in close touch with the situation there so that there will be better sanitation and cleanliness in these areas during the coming year.
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