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HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
Secondly, with this cognition, a self-evaluation can be made on the basis of the knowledge acquired. The purpose of this 'self-evaluation' is to assess the elements that may expose to hazard as well as elements that are prone to give rise to infringement of regulations, so that early remedial and preventive measures can be taken.
Finally, it is 'self-control'. The focus, the criteria and the procedures of control should be drawn up for the environmental and administrative aspects so that food traders can conduct self-monitoring and control, thus enabling the trade as whole to maintain the health and safety standard, or even to attain a higher standard.
As a result, food traders will be more spontaneous, able to display more initiative and self-discipline. We need to give them some guidance only and then we can achieve positive improvement and higher managerial efficiency without resorting to the passive monitoring method of prosecution and punishment.
Mr. Chairman, with these remarks, I support the motion.
MR. PAO PING-WING (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, when I set about to prepare for my address this year, I retrieved my speeches last year and the year before and glanced over them. I discovered that the speech I was to get ready this year would actually be very simple. If I combined what I had said last year and the year before, it would tally a great deal with the situation this year. Some of my colleagues may have a certain familiarity in what I am about to say, but please do not think it peculiar. Why do I say that it will suffice by simply combining my speeches in the past two years? That is because the Council is still faced with the concerns I mentioned last year and the year before. Of course, some of the issues are beyond the Urban Council's accomplishment.
Firstly, on the review of the political system, I remember I proposed last year the merging of the Urban Council and the Regional Council. In fact, this has been my standpoint for a number of years. If we are to provide the public with a council organisation that boasts high quality, high economic efficiency and streamlined structure so that the standard of urban services can be better assured and the Hong Kong community will have access to well-coordinated urban services, then it would be imperative to integrate the two Councils. Some members of the community are beginning to put forward this idea. Yet I recall, and some of my Urban Council colleagues whose seniority is similar to mine will also recollect that this was precisely the Urban Council's position when the government introduced the new representative government and established the Regional Council in the New Territories. Unfortunately, the government clung obstinately to its own course. There might be various reasons, an understandable one being that the authorities did not want Hong Kong to have yet another highly influential and highly monitoring council to
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