On Sunday (14th), the government launched a three-month "Government Combating Hygiene Black Spot Plan", with more than 600 hygienic black spots covering back lane hygiene, street obstruction, graffiti, waste disposal, rodent and mosquito infestation, illegal parking, etc. type.
Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration Cheuk Wing-hing and several officials inspected some health blackspots on the same day, during which he admitted that citizens must cooperate with the government, otherwise "it will only keep reincarnating in this nightmare of 'you clear me, you clear me'". .
If the hygiene problem keeps reincarnating, it actually reflects that the methods of dealing with environmental issues among government departments have fallen into reincarnation.
The past improvement has not been maintained, Zhuo Yongxing believes that it is because the action has not been sustained and the department's responsibilities are unclear.
He will establish a "standard operating model" and then hand it over to the department for continuous implementation in the region. He will also monitor the effectiveness of the government's work by clarifying the division of labor, amending legislation, performance indicators, adding closed-circuit television, and promoting a community monitoring network.
Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration Cheuk Wing-hing, Secretary for Development Ning Hon-ho, Director of Buildings Yu Po-mei and other officials inspected the illegal signboards at Fuk Wa Street in Sham Shui Po on the same day.
(Photo by Lu Yiming)
Setting KPIs is all about convincing the public that cleaning action won't be futile
Lack of accountability is a major failure of cleanup.
Sanitation issues are interlinked in the community. Take the rat problem as an example. Rats can easily spread viruses and bacteria, endangering the health of residents.
They are roaming everywhere, and it is difficult to remediate by individual departments alone. It is even more difficult to control the garbage, blockage, and pollution of street buildings behind the rodent infestation. Inspection, law enforcement, and management are even more difficult.
When there are many departments involved, officials push each other, and in the end no one handles them, allowing the environment to deteriorate.
The Audit Commission and the Office of The Ombudsman have investigated and investigated over the years, and the points of criticism are similar.
Therefore, the current government's plan to add KPIs for departments is particularly important.
With indicators, departments must meet the indicators in future work. If the work falls behind the indicators by a large margin, the department or its head will also have certain consequences.
Only then will we have the opportunity to encourage departments to respond to the demands of the public and end the bad habit of unloading each other and procrastinating in work.
However, Zhuo Yongxing has not yet explained the details of the KPI since the establishment of the regional affairs coordinating working group, and it will be completed in October.
The Deputy Secretary-General has rhetoric but lacks details. How can we teach people how to believe that our actions can get rid of the tried and failed clean-up campaign in the past?
What has achieved little so far is the government's gradual clarification of the final responsible department for health issues.
Take the rampant abandonment of motorcycles as an example. Citizens and district councillors have asked the government to deal with it many years ago.
In fact, the car body has a serial number, and a representative of an automobile organization pointed out that the police can trace the owner of the car by contacting the Transport Department.
The lack of communication between several departments in the past is a negligence. Now the deputy director has finally finalized the handling of the Transport Department, just to make up for it.
In response to media enquiries, the department pointed out that the identity of the vehicle owner can be traced through the chassis number of the vehicle. The amendment also stipulates that if the vehicle owner fails to renew the license for two years or cancel the vehicle registration, he will be fined, and the penalty will be set at a higher level.
The next step is how to ensure that the TD enforces the law promptly, and whether to remove the vehicle on its behalf, and this comes back to the scope of KPIs.
↓↓↓Click the picture to see more than 600 areas of health black spots↓↓↓
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The role of district councils should be heavier
Environmental sanitation is an important part of community governance, and the role of regions and community groups cannot be ignored.
Zhuo Wing-hing pointed out that the District Offices will invite people from the districts or the district care teams to be established in the future to monitor the cleanliness of the districts. The Secretary for Home Affairs and Youth Affairs, Mak Meijuan, said that the Home Affairs Department has studied how to collaborate with other departments.
Residents and organizations are the masters of sanitation black spots, but they can also be sentinels. If they regularly record sanitation problems in various districts and submit the data to government departments for analysis, they can also participate in street cleaning tasks.
However, in the Secretary's introduction, the district councils and district committees seemed to be ignored. For example, Zhuo Wing-hing only mentioned district councils to give opinions on black spots, but district councils are institutions recognized by the public, and district councils and district offices also Familiar with regional affairs, the government should use it more.
In addition to collecting black spots and reporting work, the government can provide additional funding to the district councils with a high concentration of Sanwu Buildings, allowing several districts to regularly hire contractors to clean buildings and back alleys, or to pilot innovative pest control projects.
Coordinating regional affairs should not stop at combating health black spots
After Li Jiachao took office as the chief executive, four working groups were set up, and the Coordination Bureau was responsible for solving several long-standing and difficult problems in Hong Kong.
The regional affairs coordinating working group and the "Government's Plan to Combat Hygiene Black Spots", which are taking the lead, are most relevant to the general public.
When sanitation improves, everyone benefits and is more satisfied with government governance.
In fact, it is not just about combating health blackspots that require high-level regional coordination. The three-nil buildings mentioned in the previous paragraph lack management, and the aging of buildings has become a hidden danger in the city. Although the Home Affairs Department, Fire Services Department and Buildings Department have also actively intervened, it has contributed to the promotion of residents. There are still not many cooperating management companies and building maintenance companies. It is advisable for the working group to discuss the next step in dealing with the environmental sanitation problem.
Furthermore, the Deputy Secretary-General can also apply his experience in breaking down departmental barriers to other issues and departments, so that Hong Kong people can feel that the government is really like a team, dividing labor and cooperating with the same goal.
To solve intergenerational poverty, the focus of Yuzhi and Xing's vision is governance reform. The new government should come up with a five-year plan as soon as possible.
