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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
hawkers
were trading full-time in the bazaar, the remainder only intermittently. It is hoped that the figures will improve once shops, particularly meat shops near the bazaar are allocated and opened which is anticipated to be later this month.
So.
The answer to the second part of your question is that apparently sites were allocated to hawkers found trading in the Estate during a surprise survey by staff of the Resettlement Department on 19th December, 1967 with the addition of a few cases recommended on special grounds by individual Councillors and the Social Welfare Department. The great majority of the hawkers concerned, around 90% according to the Resettlement Department, were residents of the Sau Mau Ping Estate. In the view of the Resettlement Department it would have served no useful purpose to limit the allocation of sites to residents of the Estate, since there is no sustained control over unauthorized hawkers in this Estate at present and no means of preventing non-residents from trading there if they wish to do so. All those to whom sites had been allocated were apparently genuine hawkers although it is virtually impossible during any surprise survey to guarantee that all those registered are regular or full-time hawkers. As regards the allegation that some of them were "Black-marketeers" engaged in selling stalls i.e. pitches, I am doubtful if investigation would serve any useful purpose since the bazaar in question has not yet been designated as such by the Urban Council and there is nothing to stop any hawker from giving or selling his pitch to some other hawker, and no legal offence would be involved. In the absence of an effective Hawker Control Force to keep continuous watch on this hawker bazaar it is difficult to see how the law could be enforced even if this were made an offence.
The answer to the last part of your question is that it is the normal practice to conduct one or more surprise surveys of hawkers trading in a particular area before a bazaar is formed and at this time hawkers trading without licences are advised to take them out before they are allocated a site in the new bazaar. I understand that in the present case no check was made on licences by the Resettlement Department though the majority of the Hawkers concerned are believed to possess them. No checks are made on the occupancy of pitches after allocations in this Bazaar. The present staff are not sufficient and at present more staff are not available for this purpose except in the limited areas covered by the Hawker Control Force where regular checks are made to ensure that all hawkers are licensed.
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In conclusion I must explain that the control of hawker bazaars and hawkers is a function of the Urban Services Department under the direction of the Hawkers Select Committee. I am therefore grateful that this question has had the effect of bringing out the necessity for better liaison between the Council and the two Departments under its control when they deal with matters within this council's jurisdiction.
MRS. ELLIOTT:- Mr. Chairman, may I ask the Chairman of the Hawkers Select Committee through you if he would agree that the first part of my question referring to 200 pitches is near enough to his answer that there were 196, a difference of 4? May I also ask why Mr. BERNACCHI talked about the end of April when I asked a question about the end of March. Does this prove me to be saying something that's not correct or is it just a statement?
MR. BERNACCHI:- The answer is very simple. No allegation is being made against you Mrs. ELLIOTT whatsoever. The difference between 196 and 200 is indeed 4; I was giving the exact figure; your question was obviously in round numbers. As regards the end of April, I thought that it was more convenient and more informative to this Council to talk about dates nearer this time. After all, this is May now and the end of April is, therefore, a closer appreciation of the position than the end of March. Presumably, at the end of March the number of hawkers trading there full time would have been about the same.
MRS. ELLIOTT:- Mr. Chairman, in clarification may I just mention that as the hawker sites have been allocated on the 16th January I was just trying to show by my question that after more than two months only 40 sites have been occupied, 64 doesn't sound quite so bad as 40; that's just in clarification. Now, I would like to ask how the Chairman of the Hawkers Select Committee can reconcile these figures because he says that the officers went around and they found hawkers operating illegally and therefore they set up these sites. Now, why would they set up 196 sites if there were actually only about 40 or 60, as the case may be, hawkers operating?
MR. BERNACCHI:- The answer Mrs. ELLIOTT is that apparently the hawkers are not willing to go into the hawker bazaar.
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