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own-motion investigations into maintenance play and fitness equipment and outsourcing of street cleansing services
The Ombudsman of Hong Kong, Ms Winnie CHIU, held a press conference on 29 October 2020 to announce the results of two own-motion investigations. One was into the maintenance and repair of play and fitness equipment in public rental housing estates. Public rental housing estates in Hong Kong reserve leisure and recreational space for residents, with children’s playgrounds and fitness equipment provided. In recent years, there have been reports about many play and fitness equipment being in a state of disrepair or delays in repairing these facilities, rendering them unavailable for a prolonged period.
The other was into the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department’s practice of outsourcing street cleansing services. Since 2000, the Department has been outsourcing street cleansing services to cleansing contractors through tendering and contracting procedures. There have been public views that the process or practice of awarding contracts to the lowest bidder has led to inconsistent and varying service quality, and that monitoring of the performance of contractors was inadequate, resulting in frequent piling of rubbish on streets. Against this background, the Ombudsman initiated a direct investigation to examine the Government’s monitoring mechanism for outsourced street cleansing services and its effectiveness, with a view to making recommendations for improvement to the Government where necessary.
For details, please visit the “OmbudsNews” on the website of the Ombudsman Hong Kong and see the executive summaries further down below.
Source: Office of the Ombudsman Hong Kong, China
