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MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN (in Cantonese):--I would like to ask whether there will be only one award or several awards in various fields in the Urban Council Literary Award in 1991?
MR. JOSEPH Y. S. CHAN (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, The 1991 Urban Council Literary Award is still in the planning stage. It is expected that literary books will be published to give recognition to the achievement of famous writers in Hong Kong. Through their literary creative writing, we hope to improve the youngsters' appreciation and also to give them a chance to improve their literary writing skills. As I have said, the details will be announced when they are finalized.
MR. MAN SAI-CHEONG (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask a question. Since the Urban Council has organized a lot of literary activities involving many libraries staff, have we ever considered deploying specific staff to handle these activities in view of more need for co-ordination and continuity? Furthermore, those works which have been graded winning entries should be published as soon as possible so that writers who have received prizes can be encouraged by the Urban Council to have more and better creative writing.
MR. JOSEPH Y. S. CHAN (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, on our establishment we have appointed a Librarian to look after library extension activities which also include activities relating to creative writing and literary work. As regards creative writing for adults and children and the winning entries, they are usually published at the first available opportunity for general appreciation to members of the public. If we could find a fast method, I certainly hope that Members could put forward their views in the Libraries Select Committee for our consideration. If it proves feasible, we will certainly adopt Members' suggestions.
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lunch boxes. Emphasis was placed on good personal hygiene and proper storage of both cooked and uncooked foods. Licensees of food factories which supply lunch boxes to schools and factories have been advised on the proper way to deliver lunch boxes to their destinations. So far no incident of food poisoning from lunch boxes supplied by licensed food factories has been reported.
As regards vans which sell cooked food or lunch boxes, this type of business requires a Fixed Pitch Hawker (Mobile van) licence. At present no such hawker licence is in force in the Urban Council area. The food poisoning incident occurred recently at Kowloon Tong originated from consumption of lunch boxes from a van operated by an unlicensed hawker. Intensive action has been taken by the hawker control staff to curb this type of unlicensed business. In the past 5 months a total of 7 unlicensed cooked food hawkers operating from mobile vans have been prosecuted and convicted. The vans they used in the unlicensed business were also confiscated as a result of their convictions. The penalty is therefore deterrent. Following the Kowloon Tong case, the General Duties Team arrested an unlicensed mobile food van hawker on 19 May 1989. Legal action against him is being instituted.
Apart from these inspection and enforcement actions it has taken to ensure safe supply of lunch boxes, the Department in conjunction with the Education Unit of MSB will launch a food hygiene campaign in June. The purpose is to disseminate the message of food hygiene and good hygiene practices to all persons engaged in the food trade and to members of the public. All these measures will help to protect public health and reduce the incidence of food poisoning.
MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN (in English): Mr. Chairman, may I ask two supplementaries? The first one is: were the vans used by the seven unlicensed cooked food hawkers, who were prosecuted and convicted, mobile vehicle vans? This is the first supplementary. The second supplementary: are there any particular reasons for any other particular reasons why so far up to date no application has been made for a fixed pitch hawker mobile van licence? Is it worthwhile for the Select Committee to review the conditions in applying for such a licence to see to what extent it is practical for a potential licensee to apply?
DR. RONALD D. B. LEUNG (in English):-Mr. Chairman, the unlicensed food van is operated from mobile vehicle van. For this obvious reason, because of mobility they can always transfer their business areas to the areas where there is a great demand. As I said in the text of my answer the food van required to take out a fixed pitch hawker mobile van licence for the business and our current policy is not to allow them because we cannot find the site for such facility to allocate the fixed pitch area for the vans to park. The second problem of this mobile vans is that if they are given licences they will cause a lot of traffic congestion and obstruction. Therefore I think the best answer would be to
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