The Secretary for Security said that on the whole the uniforms made-to-measure by the contractors for the sciplined services had been satisfactory. The Secretary said that if the 800 made-to-measure uniforms returned by the Customs and Excise Department were the product of bad workmanship then the contract would not be renewed.
7.60 The Commissioner said that the CSI would take 18 months to two years before they were able to produce stock-size uniforms in large numbers to fit out all the disciplined services. A working party would be set up to look into the matter.
7.61 Conclusions and Recommendations. The Committee are concerned by the apparent conflict in the implementation of the Government policy for making full use of the Correctional Services Industries (CSI). On the one hand, the CSI garment-making programme centred on manufacturing stock-size uniforms has been expanded; on the other hand, three of the five disciplined services are demanding made-to-measure uniforms. The Committee note that stock-size uniforms manufactured by the CSI for the staff of the Correctional Services Department have met the standards of quality required. The Committee also note that the British Forces manage to maintain efficiency, discipline and morale with stock-size uniforms.
7.62 The Committee question the opinion of the Secretary for Security that uniformed staff of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, the Customs and Excise Department and the Immigration Department require made-to-measure uniforms to ensure that officers are dressed smartly.
7.63 The Committee believe that as Hong Kong's economic development moves forward, and as competition for resources grows, the additional cost of providing made-to-measure uniforms for some 30,000 staff in these three departments will be even harder to justify. The Committee therefore recommend that an early study be carried out into the feasibility of providing stock-size uniforms based on computer analyses of the size characteristics of uniformed staff of these departments. The Committee recommend that the expertise of the Vocational Training Council and the Hong Kong Productivity Council should be drawn upon for the study. The Committee wish to be informed of the progress and the outcome.
IMMIGRATION DEPARTMENT
7.64 Paragraphs 75–77. The Government could save $1 million a year if immigration control officers checked the air passenger departure tax tickets of departing passengers instead of employing staff through a security company specially for checking the tickets. The Director of Immigration said that if his Department was to take over the responsibility for invalidating air passenger departure tax tickets he would need to devise a system for ensuring that every ticket was counter-checked. He believed that the cost of such a system would exceed $1 million. Additional checks were necessary, not because he lacked confidence in his staff, but because it was Government policy to have proper corruption prevention measures.
7.65 It was suggested to the Director of Immigration that the checking of the tax tickets would be a simple procedure involving the collection of the ticket stubs. The counter-checking could be done by checking the number of passengers leaving Hong Kong against the tickets issued. The Director conceded that it would be possible for immigration officers to collect ticket stubs and that he already counted the number of passengers leaving Hong Kong. But there could be legal problems over responsibility for any under-collection of tax. The aircraft operators were required to pay to the Government the full amount of tax due. He had not sought legal confirmation of this point.
7.66 The Director did not accept that he was not being co-operative. In his opinion the need to check and invalidate tickets had not been established. Even if it was necessary he believed that no serious consideration had been given to finding other ways of doing so.
7.67 The Director did not accept that it would take only one second to check each passenger as suggested by the Director of Audit. If he was asked to do the job he would need extra staff. Should the Government, take over the whole job of collecting the air passenger departure tax from the aircraft operators he would certainly be willing to play his part. Immigration staff, although employed for immigration duties, were happy to cooperate with other departments. But they were under pressure. It was difficult to cope with the existing workload. Any additional load was bound to have an effect on staff morale. Given adequate resources, however, his staff would be willing to do the job cheerfully.
7.68 Conclusions and Recommendations. The Committee note the reservations of the Director of Immigration about taking over work which is the responsibility of the airlines, the staffing implications and the need for additional corruption prevention procedures. The Committee also note the Director's suggestion that other more cost-effective solutions which do not involve his department may be feasible.
7.69 The Committee recommend that the Director of Immigration, the Director of Civil Aviation, and the Director of Corruption Prevention jointly work out the extra costs to the Immigration Department of taking on the work of checking the air passenger departure tax tickets, taking into account the simple nature of the work and the fact that procedures already exist to guard against dishonesty. In addition, they should consider whether there are any cost-effective alternatives.
7.70 The Committee wish to be informed if the current disagreements cannot be resolved and if so what measures are proposed to deal with this dispute. If, however, agreement is reached the Committee wish to be informed of the proposed solution and progress made in implementing it.
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