End
(b)
(c)
- 28
According to information provided by the two Departments, of the 23 overseas study tours conducted by the Regional Council, eight visits were made exclusively to environmental hygiene services and facilities, including one which involved the management of public toilets as one of the subjects of study. The total expenses incurred amounted to about $3.3 million. There were three further visits which involved inspections of environmental hygiene services in addition to other municipal services, but it is not possible to isolate the expenses for the inspections of environmental hygiene services. Of the 58 overseas study tours conducted by the Urban Council, seven were conducted with special emphasis on public health and environmental hygiene matters. The expenditure involved was around $0.63 million. The Urban Council has not conducted any overseas visit specifically to inspect public toilets but a Councilor attended the 1st and 3rd International Toilet Symposiums held in 1993 and 1996 respectively as an invited guest speaker. Expenses such as hotel, registration fees, etc. were paid by the host country whilst other expenses including airfare and miscellaneous expenses such as insurance, local travelling, telephone charges etc. amounting to $20,000 were met by the Urban Council. For the 3rd International Toilet Symposium, the airfare was paid by the participant personally out of his own pocket. Annual overseas visits conducted by the Urban Council would normally cover a number of areas and some would include a study of public toilets and public health matters as part of the overall programme. It is therefore not possible to ascertain the expenditure breakdown for individual study areas.
The Director of Audit has not conducted any value for money study on the overseas study tours by the two Municipal Councils. As the two Councils have full policy and financial autonomy, it would not be appropriate for the Government to monitor the expenditure of the Councils which, under the Regional Council Ordinance, Cap 385 and the Urban Council Ordinance, Cap 101, is entirely a matter for the two Councils to decide. There are, however, provisions in these two Ordinances for the accounts of the two Councils to be audited by the Director of Audit, and for reports on these accounts to be presented to the Governor, and for these reports to be laid before the Legislative Council. Moreover, the overall expenditure of the two Municipal Councils is subject to the amount of revenue they receive, which consist mainly of rates. The rates percentage charges which determine the amount of rates revenue made available to the two Municipal Councils are approved by resolution of the Legislative Council.
Page 40Page 41