02
250
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
I now come to the piece de resistance of my speech: That delectable titbit of bureaucracy, also known as the Memorandum of Administrative Arrangements for the Urban Council, published in 1973 and lovingly preserved in aspic every since.
In the modern lingo this piece of paper, published almost a generation ago, is our interface with Central Government. And because of the great changes in the world and in Hong Kong during the last 15 years, there are now anomalies in this piece of paper as well as many items which are just plain out of date.
As far as I know, the only alteration so far made in the MAA since 1973 has been one to the detriment of this Council and in favour of Government, namely, paragraph 2.5 in which the rates to be paid to the Council were to be the amount of rate lawfully demanded on the Council's behalf rather than the sums collected. This was to overcome practical difficulties involved in rate collection, e.g. bad debts and refunds, and to ensure that the Urban Council receives a reliable income to maintain its activities. This was altered a couple of years ago. We now receive the actual rates collected. Some compensation was paid at the time but the financial risk to the Council has been increased quite considerably, so I think it is only fair that we now look at this agreement again from a financial point of view to see where the agreement can and should be altered in order to make our operations more efficient and thereby financially more viable.
Apart from that every now and then a desultory attempt has been made to amend the MAA, but nothing has ever come of it because successive Chairmen of this Council and successive Directors of the Urban Services have always operated under the principle that it is better to deal with the devil one knows (and Deputy Financial Secretaries are devils, there is no question about that!), and also that trying to drag the MAA into the light of day would open a can of worms which could very well be detrimental to this Council.
It will come as no surprise to members to learn that I disagree with this attitude. I believe that if something is out of date it should be updated. And I don't think whatever happens when both Government and the Council look at the MAA with the intention of changing its conditions will be detrimental to the taxpayer or the public, although it might well be detrimental either to the authority of the Central Government or to the authority of this Council. However, we are in business to do the best possible for the public and not for ourselves.
So I am now herewith officially opening the can of worms to suggest where, in the light of experience and present day events, the MAA should be altered.
Declaring an interest as someone connected with the garage business, but also as the transport expert on this Council, let me just give you one small instance how badly we are bound by the MAA. Under paragraph 1.4 it is stated that we have to have our large vehicle fleet serviced by the Public Works Department and if we want to alter that arrangement, the Director of Urban Services would have to raise the matter with the Colonial Secretary (you can see how outdated the MAA is because nowadays, of course, the Public Works Department has become the EMSD and the Colonial Secretary has become the Chief Secretary), who would have to have particular regard to the consequences of taking this work away from the Public Works Department, and in terms of the capacity of the Electrical and Mechanical Office. In other words, the efficiency of our vehicles and the good maintenance of them comes second to maintaining the EMSD service for the rest of the Government fleet!
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I think members are aware that the EMSD service of our vehicles, to put it mildly, is neither cost effective nor operationally satisfactory. As you know, we have a very rigid tendering system and yet because of the MAA we are not allowed to go out to tender for our vehicle maintenance services which, in fact, gives an untendered monopoly to the EMSD.
Despite constant pressure extending over a number of years, EMSD is still unable, or unwilling, to inform the Department of what work it proposes to carry out, or which it has carried out. Estimates are never provided before work is done. The only bills produced are not only produced late, but are grossly inadequate allowing us, the vehicle owners, no chance of discovering what work has been done, nor any chance of querying the charges. The Department, as the fleet managers, has very little say in when and how often vehicles are pulled in for checks and services. We have built a fine service unit at Sai Yee Street, but EMSD refuses to permit it to be used to its proper capacity, in particular refusing to allow it to be manned properly at night. And the EMSD depots which are forced to use are professionally inadequate for their purposes.
I have seen their workshops. Their equipment is second rate, insufficient, and out of date. Their premises are completely unsuited for the use they are put to (it is shocking in this day and age to find repair work being done in the open, which not only has to be stopped when it rains, but which on a dismantled vehicle will cause corrosion damage). The Sung Wong Toi premises, for instance, are above a basement so that no working pits can be installed and the ceiling height is too low to allow for hoists for large vehicles. When I have been in these workshops I have always noticed over-manning, and although it is always very difficult to get figures out of EMSD, the figures which I was given of 1920 jobs per month with 307 productive personnel is about double the number of workmen necessary for that number of jobs in the private sector. I am quite sure that with this sort of set up we are paying for excessive time taken.
Do you really think that in the private sector anyone with their own car, or companies who have trucks or vans would ever consider using a garage that refused to give you any information on the work it proposes to do, refused to give you proper bills, or refused to allow you to make the decisions on what is to be done? Yet that is what is happening to us. The consequence is that we have quite ridiculous off the road down time ratios. The latest statistics I have for August and September of this year show that out of 62 street cleaning vehicles, 30 were off the road. Out of 27 street sweepers, just under half were off the road, and over 20% of our huge fleet of RCV's were off the road. I am tabling...
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02
250
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
I now come to the piece de resistance of my speech: That delectable titbit of bureaucracy, also known as the Memorandum of Administrative Arrangements for the Urban Council, published in 1973 and lovingly preserved in aspic every
since.
In the modern lingo this piece of paper, published almost a generation ago, is our interface with Central Government. And because of the great changes in the world and in Hong Kong during the last 15 years, there are now anomalies in this piece of paper as well as many items which are just plain out of date.
As far as I know, the only alteration so far made in the MAA since 1973 has been one to the detriment of this Council and in favour of Government, namely, paragraph 2.5 in which the rates to be paid to the Council were to be the amount of rate lawfully demanded on the Council's behalf rather than the sums collected. This was to overcome practical difficulties involved in rate col- lection, e.g. bad debts and refunds, and to ensure that the Urban Council re- ceives a reliable income to maintain its activities. This was altered a couple of years ago. We now receive the actual rates collected. Some compensation was paid at the time but the financial risk to the Council has been increased quite considerably, so I think it is only fair that we now look at this agreement again from a financial point of view to see where the agreement can and should be altered in order to make our operations more efficient and thereby financially more viable.
Apart from that every now and then a desultory attempt has been made to amend the MAA, but nothing has ever come of it because successive Chairman of this Council and successive Directors of the Urban Services have always operated under the principle that it is better to deal with the devil one knows (and Deputy Financial Secretaries are devils, there is no question about that!), and also that trying to drag the MAA into the light of day would open a can of worms which could very well be detrimental to this Council.
It will come as no surprise to members to learn that I disagree with this atti- tude. I believe that if something is out of date it should be updated. And I don't think whatever happens when both Government and the Council look at the MAA with the intention of changing its conditions will be detrimental to the taxpayer or the public, although it might well be detrimental either to the au- thority of the Central Government or to the authority of this Council. How- ever, we are in business to do the best possible for the public and not for our- selves.
So I am now herewith officially opening the can of worms to suggest where, in the light of experience and present day events, the MAA should be altered.
Declaring an interest as someone connected with the garage business, but also as the transport expert on this Council, let me just give you one small in- stance how badly we are bound by the MAA. Under paragraph 1.4 it is stated that we have to have our large vehicle fleet serviced by the Public Works De- partment and if we want to alter that arrangement, the Director of Urban Services would have to raise the matter with the Colonial Secretary (you can see
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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251
how outdated the MAA is because nowadays, of course, the Public Works De- has become the EMSD and the Colonial Secretary has become the partment Chief Secretary), who would have to have particular regard to the consequences of taking this work away from the Public Works Department, and in terms of the capacity of the Electrical and Mechanical Office. In other words, the efficiency of our vehicles and the good maintenance of them comes second to maintaining the EMSD service for the rest of the Government fleet!
I think members are aware that the EMSD service of our vehicles, to put it mildly, is neither cost effective nor operationally satisfactory. As you know, we have a very rigid tendering system and yet because of the MAA we are not allowed to go out to tender for our vehicle maintenance services which, in fact, gives an untendered monopoly to the EMSD.
Despite constant pressure extending over a number of years, EMSD is still unable, or unwilling, to inform the Department of what work it proposes to carry out, or which it has carried out. Estimates are never provided before work is done. The only bills produced are not only produced late, but are grossly in- adequate allowing us, the vehicle owners, no chance of discovering what work has been done, nor any chance of querying the charges. The Department, as the fleet managers, has very little say in when and how often vehicles are pulled in for checks and services. We have built a fine service unit at Sai Yee Street, but EMSD refuses to permit it to be used to its proper capacity, in particular refus- ing to allow it to be manned properly at night. And the EMSD depots which are forced to use are professionally inadequate for their purposes.
I have seen their workshops. Their equipment is second rate, insufficient, and out of date. Their premises are completely unsuited for the use they are put to (it is shocking in this day and age to find repair work being done in the open, which not only has to be stopped when it rains, but which on a dismantled ve- hicle will cause corrosion damage). The Sung Wong Toi premises, for instance, are above a basement so that no working pits can be installed and the ceiling height is too low to allow for hoists for large vehicles. When I have been in these workshops I have always noticed over-manning, and although it is always very difficult to get figures out of EMSD, the figures which I was given of 1 920 jobs per month with 307 productive personnel is about double the number of workmen necessary for that number of jobs in the private sector. I am quite sure that with this sort of set up we are paying for excessive time taken.
Do you really think that in the private sector anyone with their own car, or companies who have trucks or vans would ever consider using a garage that re- fused to give you any information on the work it proposes to do, refused to give you proper bills, or refused to allow you to make the decisions on what is to be done? Yet that is what is happening to us. The consequences is that we have quite ridiculous off the road down time ratios. The latest statistics I have for August and September of this year show that out of 62 street cleaning vehicles, 30 were off the road. Out of 27 street sweepers, just under half were off the road, and over 20% of our huge fleet of RCV's were off the road. I am tabling
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