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HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
I am concerned for the fact that since the status of the Urban Council is being reviewed, it is not known whether it will remain until the end of 1999 under the SAR Government. I am worried that under such circumstances, if we do not solve the issue of eliminating unlicensed restaurants as soon as possible within our term of service, it might drag on until 2000 without being resolved. I am therefore repeating the question. I want to ask Mr. Chan whether there is already a timetable for him to lead us in requesting the Urban Services Department to fix a schedule as soon as possible so as to solve the issue of closing unlicensed restaurants.
MR. JOSEPH CHAN YUEK-SUT (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, when the Public Health Select Committee discussed this issue recently, Members unanimously requested that the Department and the legal advisor should take immediate action to study the introduction of amendment to the principal ordinance.
The legal advisor advised that if we were to amend the law, the principal ordinance rather than the by-laws should be amended and if we were to amend the principal ordinance, it would not be desirable to do it unilaterally because the Public Health Ordinance also covers the Regional Council. It was decided at the meeting that day that the Secretariat should liaise with the relevant select committee of the Regional Council with a view to holding a joint meeting and arriving at a consensus, because we learned the same day that the Regional Council had shared the Regional Services Department's view that there was no need to empower the latter to take immediate action to close unlicensed restaurants.
Mr. Chairman, I know that you have privately liaised with the Chairman of the Regional Council about this issue and have obtained his agreement that the joint meeting should be held as soon as possible. I too contacted the Chairman of the Environmental Hygiene Select Committee of the Regional Council on a certain occasion. They shared our view and hoped that the meeting would be held as early as possible to arrive at a consensus and act to urge the departments concerned to introduce amendments to the principal ordinance, with a view to getting the work done as soon as possible.
MR. WONG KWOK-HING (in Cantonese): I still have a follow-up question. I thank Mr. CHAN for his active response, but I am still worried that there might be departments refusing to review this issue on the pretext that they have to complete the review of the framework first. There might be the argument that it is premature to go straight to a review of the issue before the review of the framework is completed. I wonder what Mr. CHAN thinks about this argument. I hope the Department will handle this issue as quickly as possible. Don't let the departments concerned delay the solution of the problem of unlicensed restaurants on the pretext that they have to complete the review of the framework first.
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