Page 66 of 485
44
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
and is politicizing the Urban Council. I consider this criticism pedantic. The unemployment rate has been rising and local workers find it very difficult to find jobs. This is a common concern of the whole community. As members of this community, we should show our concerns. It is also a matter of a livelihood of the people. If showing our care for people whose livelihood are adversely affected is regarded as politicising the issue, then what is wrong with that? The Democratic Party has moved a motion in LegCo to terminate importation of workers. Though the motion was not carried, we would continue to fight for job opportunities for local workers. So Members of the Democratic Party who are Members of the Urban Council will support this motion. Thank you.
MR. LI WAH-MING (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, I have listened very carefully to what Mr. WONG said in his motion. I am very glad that he did not use up all the 20 minutes. The motion moved by Mr. WONG actually is in two parts. The first part concerns the problem of unlicensed workers and urges the USD to step up enforcement action. In the 4 years I have been in this Council and as Chairman of the MST Select Committee you are indeed well aware—I have raised this question very actively. I am particularly concerned about unlicensed cooked food hawkers operating in late night. They have caused a lot more nuisance than other unlicensed hawkers. The problem of licensed itinerant hawkers and unlicensed hawkers is different. Cancellation of Itinerant Hawker Licences by April 1996 is different from the question raised by Mr. WONG. In relation to the question of terminating the labour importation scheme, I can almost read out my speech in the LegCo again here. This is a very interesting motion in my 4 years in this Council, this is the first time we have ever raised this kind of motion, urging the Government to do something which has nothing to do with the ambit of the Council. But this also reflects the fact that Members of this Council are also very concerned about matters affecting peoples' livelihood. I think this is worthy of our support. After listening to Mr. WONG's speech, I am not convinced that the problem of unlicensed hawkers is getting more and more serious. Is that really the case? Mr. Wong has mentioned some arrest figures, which are only the number of prosecutions and include repeated offenders. More than 10,000 arrests and prosecutions made do not represent the actual number of people involved in unlicensed hawking trade. Actually the USD does not have the actual figures about the number of people involved in this trade. So there is very little evidence to support that the problem is deteriorating as a result of the escalating unemployment problem. I fail to understand how tens of thousands of unlicensed hawkers is related to the 2.8% unemployment rate. From the speech of Mr. WONG I think there is little evidence to support that the rising unemployment rate leads to the deterioration of unlicensed hawkers situation. I think we need to categorize unlicensed hawkers separately. We should not adopt an across the board approach. For example, in Kwun Tong, Yau Ma Tei, Mongkok and Causeway Bay near the MTR station, in late night after 11 p.m. there are a lot of unlicensed cooked food hawkers. They have nothing to do with unemployment rate. Irrespective of the high or low unemployment rate,
Page 66 of 485