Audit Commission draws attention to gaps in illegal waste disposal and service monitoring

The Audit Commission suggested the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department(FEHD) should step up monitoring of street cleansing service records submitted by contractors as well as enforcement actions against illegal disposal of refuse.

These suggestions followed the latest audit report, which revealed non-compliance in outsourced street cleaning services regarding self-discipline quality inspections. The report noted that five out of nine inspection teams in a District Environmental Hygiene Office (DEHO) did not conduct any inspections over a two-week period.

Meanwhile, 12 percent of the routine inspections did not cover the areas between September 1 to 14 last year specified by the FEHD .

The audit report pointed out that the 66 percent of warning letters and more than half of refute notices issued by the FEHD to contractors across 19 offices from January 2019 to September last year were sent out more than seven working days after non-compliance by the contractors was identified.

Additionally, the audit found that some contractors submitted inaccurate attendance records, with some shifts showing no personnel on duty, while the FEHD responded that all shifts actually had staff present.

Regarding the department’s enforcement on illegal disposal, it is revealed that of 49 locations where illegal dumping was detected on Internet Protocol(IP) cameras, 39 (80 percent) locations were not included in reports for the enforcement teams to monitor between July to September 2024.

Moreover, 8 of the 39 locations had been reported with illegal disposal of refuse activities for over 500 to 2,141 times in the three-month period.
 
The report also indicated that by the end of last year, the three offices had installed network cameras at 45 locations, yet seven of these locations had never issued fixed penalty notices or summonses. 

The Audit Commission also conducted three inspections of four locations in Yuen Long and Sham Shui Po with environmental hygiene issues, and each inspection revealed similar problems.

Several recommendations were made in the report, including enhancing the review of daily attendance records submitted by contractors, increasing the frequency of monitoring inspections, and documenting frequently reported illegal dumping locations for monitoring, which were all accepted by the FEHD.