HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
My third point concerns corruption and regulations of food and food premises, which have been touched upon at length by my friend The Hon. Wilfred WONG. The Hon. FUNG Hon-chu spoke about corruption during the debate in this Council in 1965, and the then Chairman replied stating that corruption was a dirty word, and he went on to say and I quote, "To suggest freely that it exists, without evidence in support, is I consider, both unfair and demoralizing to the officers concerned and statements of this sort bring about a general discontent and low morale." I fully agree to the statement I just quoted, but no one can be certain that corruption does not exist in our Health Inspectorate. Furthermore, if we do have evidence, it will not be a case for discussion here but for court action. Even if corruption does not exist, it is still worth the effort to have the existing regulations revised as often as possible to ensure that corruption will not exist. Prevention is always better than cure. We must realize that our regulations for Food and Food Premises were made years ago and they are no doubt out of date. Just last week, there was another committee paper on this very same subject, but that would not make me speak less on this subject. As an architect, I come across these regulations often enough to know that they are vague, improperly written, without correct procedures, and serve to confuse the general public and even to the professionals. With these unclear and ambiguous regulations, our Inspectorate too may be perplexed on exercising them and may give in, consciously or unconsciously, to corruptions. I am well aware of the large numbers of unlicensed restaurants operating in this Colony. One such unlicensed restaurant I know of has been in operation for more than 3 years. I am sure there are many more unlicensed restaurants in operation not being detected or reported, not to mention food business functioned under the disguise of private clubs and canteens. This is clearly due to confusing laws and regulations regarding control of restaurants. After all, the main purpose of the regulations is to protect the general public. But I do not see how we can protect the general public if restaurants remain in business for long periods without a licence. The only solution is to set up a special Ad Hoc Committee to revise the entire set of regulations and to set up proper procedures for applications. Requirements that are impracticable should be deleted. Corruption must be terminated. Staff members under reasonable suspicion should be firstly warned and if found to be persistent should be demoted or even dismissed. And above all, whatever new regulations are drafted, they must be made known to the public, because the more the public understand the regulations, the less chance they are led by the nose. Nobody would be happy to see any Government Department as a scapegoat, being criticized and attacked by the public just because a minority of its staff may be taking advantage on some confusing regulations. Mr. Chairman with these remarks I have the pleasure in supporting the motion. (Applause).
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
MR. HENRY H. L. Hu:-Mr. Chairman, at last it is my turn to speak. I really do not know whether it is fortunate or unfortunate to be the last speaker at a formal meeting like the present one. Many eloquent speakers have spoken before me. They have put forward many useful ideas with utmost sincerity. Several members have said about the Ad Hoc Report on the Future Scope and Operation of the Urban Council. In other words, about the local government in Hong Kong. I should first of all say that we owe our gratitude to the members of this Ad Hoc Committee for their experience and far-sightedness in preparing their Report. We should also particularly thank its chairman, Mr. SALES, and its secretary, Mr. TINSON, for their hard work. About this subject, I am in a more fortunate position because I had the benefit of listening to His Excellency's speech at the Newspapers Society's Dinner, before I had any ideas for my speech to-day. (Laughter). The three principles announced by the Governor concerning our local government are indeed sound enough, to which I would give my support. The present question is how to carry out these sound principles.
Sir DAVID's first principle is "Local authorities must be so organized as to enable public business to be transacted as efficiently and speedily as possible". I have little comments to make save this: that every business, whether public or private, must also be run on an economic basis as well. Public money in particular should always be safely and economically used.
The second principle is that "Local Authorities must be local, enabling local initiative to be exercised in the management of purely local affairs within their scope". Local authorities can never be worthy of their name if they are not local. Local initiative can never be exercised in the management of local affairs unless the local language is to be adopted and used in all administrative councils including this Council. In this respect, I fully support the idea of the Chairman of the Reform Club, Mr. Brook BERNACCHI. Of course, I also support my two colleagues of the Reform Club who have also advanced this idea to-day. Many useful talents in Hong Kong cannot contribute their efforts for the common good of the community simply because of the language barrier. In order to run the local business successfully, we must not shut the door to those local members of our community who are willing to take part. The reason for my advocating the simultaneous translation in Urban Council meetings is not the end but the means to encourage more local people to participate in the local affairs. It seemed that our Chairman was very much concerned about the efficiency of such translation and the difficulty of being a Chairman who knows or is supposed to know only one language. The genuineness of our Chairman's feelings leaves no room for any doubt. But the short-comings in one mock meeting
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