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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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let compassion influence their judgment but, instead, pass judgment according to the law and that it would be a waste of efforts to plead with the judges for mercy or plead ignorance, so they could do nothing but plead guilty and paid the fines. Do we have no regrets at all for fining these ignorant citizens or corporate bodies? We should because they were fined as a result of dereliction of duties on our part. The people of Hong Kong are busy earning a living. To exercise common sense to deal with the problems of stagnant water and dirty water is already a lot to ask of them. When they breach the law on some matters they have no knowledge of, it is our duty to inform them instead of punishing them repeatedly through prosecutions until they understand the meaning of the relevant law. Law enforcement officers of the Department know very well where mosquitoes breed, but they have never drawn public attention to these places. On the contrary, they are afraid that if this secret is made known to the public, it will reduce the number of prosecution cases and consequently affect their promotion prospects. It is indeed very cruel to punish them without giving them prior advice. In fact, the owners' corporations have done their best to help the Council by maintaining the environment hygiene of their building. Anyway, they have at least provided the Department with a target of prosecution. If there is no owners' corporation, the Department will not know who should be prosecuted. As a matter of fact, to inform the owners' corporation about the mosquitoes' breeding spots is a simple task. The Department needs only to issue to the owner's corporation a checklist of items to be inspected one or two months before the inspection takes place. I believe the number of prosecutions will drop significantly. Moreover, it can prevent the breeding of mosquitoes as well as save manpower, and the most important point is that it will win the support of the people.
In regard to the method of catching litter bugs, USD staff would hide behind a pile of refuse. They waited for a passer-by who happened to have a tissue paper in hand with which he had just wiped his nose. Seeing there was already a pile of refuse on the ground the man thought it wouldn't matter if he 'dropped' something. (So he did.) And he was prosecuted. Where did the pile of refuse come from, I wonder? We have baits for fishing. Now we also have baits for catching litter bugs. I really don't understand where that pile of refuse came from. Why didn't the USD staff clear it away instead of using it as a litter bug bait? I am really doubtful about the method employed by the law enforcement officers and their mentality.
The second point is about system. Illegal hawkers and market management have all along been problems without any solutions. I think that the policy-making authority should consider whether there is wrong with the existing arrangements. The raids on illegal hawkers and reordering of markets produce only short-term effects. Within 10 minutes after an operation, the former hawking scene reappears; illegal hawkers set up their stalls again and continue to do business. The operations, in fact, are a waste of manpower. It might be better if no operation has been carried out at all. What is even worse is that the public can witness that when a hawker control operation is carried out, illegal hawkers take turns to be the arrestees. In fact, there is still room for negotiation among the parties concerned. While I hate to believe that partial treatment exists, the repetition of such scenes makes me doubt whether these arrests are done impartially. One must behave properly first before asking others to behave. Stalls leased out by the Urban Council are not properly managed. Such stores extend to the passages. Some of them even have an extension of 7 to 8 feet, which is three-fifth the width of the passage. If you do not believe me, you can visit the temporary market in Mut Wah Street, Kwun Tong to see if I am exaggerating. How can we, as Urban Councillors, face the public's censure if such things continue to exist? The above situation is just like someone having a pernicious ringworm problem. He applies some ointment onto the affected area and then leaves it untreated, until a month or two later when he applies the ointment again. How could he be cured then? His condition would only deteriorate. It is just the same with illegal hawkers. Operations are carried out only once in a while and as a result, more and more hawkers appear. We often hear from the Hawker Control Force that they have carried out a certain number of operations. However, statistics do not mean anything. I can give you some figures now. Are you going to look at them? What we want in fact are effectiveness and results.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to request that the Department should proceed to consider the decentralization of power, so that the Branches and Sections concerned can take up the responsibility of eliminating unlicensed hawkers. I mean responsibility, not work and action. Power can be decentralized to some specified offices in the districts so that they can devise plans catered to circumstances in individual districts. Upon the expiry of the time allowed, the district offices have to report whether they have achieved the aim or not, rather than to report on the number of operations carried out. Moreover, a system of rewards and punishments should be introduced.
The municipal services directly concern the public and the communication is usually one-way. Do we get feedbacks on different aspects from the public? Only what the public tells us can genuinely reflect their feelings. For example, park management, market management, hawker problem, street cleanliness, and refuse collection, etc., can all be directly felt by the residents of every district. I therefore propose that an advisory body be set up in every district with representatives of residents as members. This can not only give the residents a sense of belonging towards the Urban Council but also enable us to gather their views. It certainly has a positive effect on the municipal services and the advisory body can also assume a supervisory role.
Mr. Chairman, with these words, I support the motion. Thank you.
MR. LEUNG KAM-TAO (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, I am new to the Council and have not yet fully acquainted myself with its affairs. So I will make use of the Annual Conventional Debate to express my three wishes towards the future work of the Urban Council. First, I wish the Urban Council would draw up a specific plan to solve the hawker problem as soon as possible. I had an interview with the Assistant Director of Urban Service (Hawkers) soon after my assumption of office. The dialogue lasted for about two hours but I was still unable to learn from him what specific programme the Urban Services Department or Urban Council had for tackling the problem. We have been troubled by the hawker problem for years. I think one of the reasons that the problem has not been solved so far is that no particular scheme has ever been worked out. And why has this not yet been done up to now? I think the most important reason
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