1997 — Page 64

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

Try to think about this case, fellow colleagues. Imagine you leave the Urban Council very late one of these days. On coming out of the washroom, an intruder threatens robbery, ties you up and robs you of your belongings. Then the minute you are freed, you report to the police. The police says sorry, telling you that security guards are responsible for Urban Council premises, not the police. The only offer is to talk with the security guards and advise them to improve their quality of service. If you get such an answer, you would certainly be furious. May be you will call a press conference or wave a banner of 200 words in Central to ask the police to face the case squarely. And yet, despite all these, there are still people saying that the responsibility should be with the Housing Authority. Indeed, according to the Housing Ordinance, the Housing Authority has the right to set out bylaws on cleanliness and hygiene. However, as far as I know, there are no such bylaws. The Ordinance also empowers the Housing Authority to manage estates and calls for concern for residents in the process of management. I am not saying that we should manage estates for the Housing Authority. I am saying that some sections of the Housing Ordinance are not applicable when we enforce the Public Health and Municipal Service Ordinance. I refer to part 7 on overcrowded households which is not applicable to public estates. From the above motion, it can be seen that we support the application of the Public Health and Municipal Service Ordinance and its application to public estates. Estate residents represent nearly 40% of our population. They make up one of our largest employers and they are the voters. Are we supposed to tell them that there is not much we can do even if they elect us? Can we ask them to speak to the Housing Authority? If we do so, will they be disappointed?

Cleanliness of public estates should be the responsibility of the Housing Authority, but the Housing Authority should not be deemed as one with sole responsibility. This Council cannot shirk its responsibility in respect of hygiene and cleanliness in public estates. Given that, we have to consider how to carry out our responsibility. Stepping up enforcement actions is of course one of the ways, but what I am concerned about here is other ways to tackle the problem. We propose here a fresh approach for the Council to set criteria for quarterly assessment and grading and then to publicize the results.

In fact, without a survey to back up, one has no right to speak. The Democratic Party started a survey on 25 April and we discovered that results of the survey were different from our expectations. For example, we thought older estates were not so clean, but the survey finding revealed that cleanliness in Wo Lok and Sai Wan Estates was quite good. Back to criteria. Is it very difficult to set down criteria? No. Setting down criteria for assessment is nothing strange to the Council and the Department. The daily work of the Department involves similar work. For example, we assess hygiene conditions at roast meat shops and cleanliness in markets every day. We are aware that estate management advisory committees have been set up in different housing estates managed by the Housing Authority and they carry out regular

Page 64 of 654