XN000022-1996-05-08 — Page 59

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Permits for watchmen in private buildings

Following is a question by the Hon Chan Kam-lam and a written reply by the Secretary for Security, Mr Peter Lai, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

Will the Government inform this Council :

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

of the present number of caretakers (commonly known as watchmen) employed in private buildings in the territory, and the number of those who are above the age of 65 and in possession of watchman permit;

of the number of persons who have applied for the new security personnel permit and the number of such permits that have been issued since the implementation of the Security and Guarding Services Ordinance in June last year;

whether any applications for the new security personnel permit have been rejected; if so, what the reasons are;

of the publicity measures taken by the Government appealing to those watchmen who have not yet applied for security personnel permits to do so before the expiry of the grace period at the end of this month;

whether there is adequate manpower in the Police Licensing Office for processing all the applications for security personnel permits; if not, whether the Police will consider increasing the manpower for processing such applications; and

whether it will review the licensing conditions stipulated in the Ordinance to determine if there is a need to relax such conditions?

Reply:

Mr President,

(a)

At present, there are about 130,000 watchmen registered with the Police under the Watchmen Ordinance. We do not keep separate statistics on the number of watchmen working in private residential buildings. According to the record of the Police Licensing Office, there are 26,493 watchman's permit holders who are above the age of 65.