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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Environmental Hygiene Select Committee-to get results by word of warning and exhortation. It is not yet a foregone conclusion that we should not license; but the crux of the problem is control, whether we license or not.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Thank you.
MR. SALES:-Mr. Chairman, if private refuse collecting is recognized by this Council, is it not in the public interest to introduce a measure of licensing?
CHAIRMAN:-Sir, I should prefer to refer that question back to the Environmental Hygiene Select Committee.
MR. SALES:-I agree, Mr. Chairman, that you do so.
Would you also suggest to the particular Select Committee concerned that perhaps the machinery should be set up whereby refuse collectors could refer to that Select Committee any grievance they might have against the supervision which is exercised by the Department?
CHAIRMAN:-Sir, your remarks are noted.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Mr. Chairman, with your permission, MR. SALES has tempted me to ask another supplementary in regard to multi-storey buildings. Is the staff taking more than ordinary steps to ensure that refuse collection in multi-storey buildings is being carried out fairly efficiently, especially where refuse collectors are involved?
CHAIRMAN:-As regards refuse collection the Department's responsibility ends where public places and private property come together. If, inside premises, private refuse collectors are using methods which are not up to proper standards, the private property owner, or the resident, or the lessee, should bring cases of nuisance to notice, and they will be investigated by the Health Inspectorate.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Mr. Chairman, I asked that supplementary because before our water shortage began there were complaints in the press (and I myself have received some) about the difficulties that people in multi-storey buildings were experiencing in refuse collection. I would like to ask you, Sir, whether or not you would refer this subject to the Environmental Hygiene Select Committee to consider?
CHAIRMAN:-Yes, Sir.
MR. FUNG HON-CHU:-Mr. Chairman, in furtherance to your reply to MR. CHEONG-LEEN's question concerning private refuse collectors, I wonder whether they need to get themselves registered to get a business licence?
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
CHAIRMAN: It is my understanding, Sir, that practically 90 to 95 per cent of the private refuse collectors are self-employed or belong to very, very small companies, and that they do not come within the sphere of the Business Registration Ordinance.
MR. A. de O. SALES asked the following question:-
(a) Are you able to tell what measures, if any, Government intends taking to keep the public better informed of the policies and programmes carried out by this Council? (b) Will Government consider seconding an officer of the Department of Information Services to work with the Council? Or is it Government's intention that the Council should engage its own public relations officer?
THE CHAIRMAN replied as follows:
The best answer that I can give at the moment to the first part of the question is that, depending upon the outcome of a discussion which is to take place at the Standing Committee meeting this afternoon, I expect that either a small select committee of this Council or a unit of the Urban Services and Information Services departments may be formed, with the object of promoting better understanding by the public of the policies and programmes of this Council where such seems necessary. With regard to the second part of the question, I understand that Government's present policy is not to second officers from the Information Services Department to work full-time with other departments on publicity, and that this policy applies equally to any proposal to second an officer to the Council. The principal reason is that one officer could not discharge these functions as effectively as a department comprising a number of officers with special training and abilities. Members are aware that staff at present working for the Council are Government servants. The question of Council's appointing its own public relations officer does not therefore seem to arise, but if it did, the difficulty of finding a suitably qualified man which I have just alluded to would have to be overcome.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Mr. Chairman, may I ask MR. SALES, through you, when this question was framed by him in regard to the Council appointing its own public relations officer, whether he had in mind a Government servant?
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