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Following is the opening statement by the Secretary for Security, Mrs Regina Ip, today (Friday) at the meeting of Legislative Council's Panel on Security on the 1998 Policy Address:
"The objective of the Security Bureau is to maintain Hong Kong as a secure and safe city and to preserve Hong Kong's social stability under the rule of law. We aim to achieve this objective by :
- maintaining law and order;
- maintaining immigration control; and
- safeguarding public safety.
Our programme activities are set out in the Policy Objective Booklet on "A Secure and Safe City", which has been distributed to Members. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the key features.
Maintaining Law and Order
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Hong Kong is one of the safest metropolitan cities in the world. The overall crime rate of Hong Kong in 1997 was the lowest in the past 24 years. The downward trend of the crime rates continued in the first eight months of 1998. Compared to the same period last year, the overall crime rate and the violent crime rate dropped by 2.2% and 1.7% respectively. Despite the downward trend of the crime rates, there are concerns that the law and order situation of Hong Kong may deteriorate because of the economic downturn and rising unemployment. Our law enforcement agencies, including the Police Force will be particularly vigilant in preventing and detecting crimes.
Our Police Force is one of the best trained and equipped forces in the world. We will continue to strengthen the capability of the Police Force to enable them to maintain law and order. Additional Police officers will be deployed to perform increasing frontline operational duties arising from the rapid development of the territory (e.g. the Police establishment in two developing new towns - Ma On Shan and Tseung Kwan O will be reinforced in the next four years. Additional posts will be provided to enable the Police to discharge additional duties arising from the construction of the West Rail.)
We will examine further the scope for enhancing the effectiveness of frontline Police work through the use of modern information technology, e.g. enabling beat Police officers to have direct access to information systems, enabling Police officers of the traffic accidents investigation units to have direct access to the central database, and installing computer systems for mapping Police vehicle tracking, and crime and incident recording, etc.
We will continue to improve the quality of Police services by adopting a customer service approach. We will embark on a programme of improving the Police stations, particularly the report rooms which are frequently visited by members of the public. We will streamline reporting procedures and improve the layout and facilities in report rooms so as to create a more efficient and user-friendly environment.
We need to work closely with law enforcement agencies world-wide to tackle trans-boundary crimes. We have maintained excellent cooperation with our overseas law enforcement partners, mainly through the Interpol network. We will continue to expand the existing network of cooperation with key countries by negotiating and concluding more bilateral agreements on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters and surrender of fugitive offenders. We will also continue to maintain close cooperation with Mainland authorities to combat various cross-boundary crimes such as smuggling and drug trafficking through regular liaison meetings and joint operations. In line with tackling the money laundering trends in Financial Action Task Force member jurisdictions, we plan to amend the Drug Trafficking (Recovery of Proceeds) Ordinance to require money changers and remittance agents to take such anti-money laundering measures as record-keeping and customer identification, and make the confiscation and other provisions therein more effective.
We aim to remove drug abusers' dependence on drugs and reintegrate them into the community. And our efforts are bearing fruit: the number of reported drug abusers of all ages fell from 19,672 in 1996 to 17,631 in 1997, a drop of 10.4%; and in the first six months of 1998, the number of reported drug abusers of all ages fell by another 5.1%, as compared with the same period last year. We will continue with our efforts in preventive education and keep up the momentum of our publicity work at schools and workplace. Furthermore, we will continue to review the operation of the $350 million Beat Drugs Fund with a view to ensuring that more innovative and worthwhile anti-drug projects will be supported.
Correctional services are an integral part of our programmes for maintaining law and order in the community. Modern correctional services would not only focus on punishment and deterrence, but also put emphasis on rehabilitation of offenders, so that inmates are properly prepared to reintegrate into society after serving their sentences. Improvements were made in recent years to our rehabilitative and aftercare services particularly for young offenders, and we will continue to do so by following up on the recommendations in City University's report on the "Effectiveness of Rehabilitation Programmes for Young Offenders", and enhancing community acceptance of rehabilitated offenders. We will also introduce legislation for a new short-term residential rehabilitation programme for young offenders, which will provide an additional sentencing option for suitable young female offenders and young male offenders who are physically unfit to participate in the existing Detention Centre programme. The proposed arrangement will enable these young inmates to rehabilitate through a more focused community-based programme.
Overcrowding in our penal institutions is not a new problem, and is a particular concern for our maximum security prisons and remand centres. We will continue to take steps to ease prison overcrowding by providing additional penal places through redeveloping existing correctional institutions, identifying suitable sites for new prisons, and reshuffling the penal population to maximise utilisation of existing capacity.
Maintaining Immigration Control
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Our objective is to control legal immigration and combat illegal immigration, while making it as convenient as possible for Hong Kong residents and bona fide visitors to travel in and out of Hong Kong. By and large, we have achieved this :
- legal immigration from the Mainland is in line with the established quota of 150 per day, and the Certificate of Entitlement Scheme is working well;
- illegal immigration from the Mainland fell from 23,180 in 1996 to 17,819 in 1997, a drop of 23.1%. In the first eight months of 1998, illegal immigration decreased to 8,644, a 29% drop compared to the same period in 1997;
- we managed to achieve our performance pledge of clearing 92% of passengers through our control points within 30 minutes;
- we have now issued over 700,000 Kong Kong SAR passports, with visa free access to 52 countries world-wide.
We are not complacent with our performance in clearing passengers through the control points, in particular the new airport. We will take steps to improve the speed of immigration clearance at the airport, with a view to clearing 92% of passengers within 15 minutes. This will be a significant improvement over the present target time of 30 minutes.
Despite the drop in illegal immigration, we will remain vigilant in our efforts to combat illegal employment. This is particularly important at a time when the local unemployment rate is soaring. We will step up enforcement actions against illegal employment and will introduce a Bill to the Legislative Council before the end of the year to amend the Immigration Ordinance to hold construction site controllers liable if persons not lawfully employable take up employment on their sites.
The Immigration Department uses information technology widely to support its day-to-day operations and services to the public. We will capitalise on the advancement in information technology. We will review the existing computer systems with a view to formulating an information strategy to make optimum use of information technology to meet the business needs of the Department, such as the use of smart cards to expedite clearance of HK residents arriving and departing HK, and the issue of electronic visas for visitors who need to apply for visas.
Safeguarding Public Safety
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We need to protect the public from the dangers posed by fires. We have been able to meet the graded response time for fire calls in 1997-98. We will continue to augment the Fire Services in the coming years so as to enable them to better meet the demands of a growing population over a wider geographical spread. In 1999-2000, we will improve the fire fighting capability on Lantau with the growing population in the Tung Chung new town, the opening of the Hong Kong International Airport, and the extensive industrial and public housing projects in the Tai Ho and Penny Bay areas.
We have been progressively improving fire safety in private buildings. The Fire Safety (Commercial Premised) Ordinance has provided for better fire safety protection for prescribed commercial premises and old commercial buildings. We have introduced the Fire Safety Improvement Loan Scheme which provides financial assistance to affected owners. We will continue to improve fire safety in other private buildings in 1999-2000 by:
- stepping up enforcement actions to ensure that fire safety measures in buildings are properly maintained;
- increasing community awareness of and involvement in fire safety;
- preparing legislation to upgrade fire safety standards in composite (commercial/residential) buildings; and
- introducing a licensing system for karaoke establishments.
We are committed to protecting the public from incidents involving dangerous goods or chemicals. We will, pursuant to a comprehensive review of the existing control framework, introduce legislative amendments next year to improve the control of dangerous goods and ensure that our safety requirements are in line with international standards.
With the progressive injection of additional resources to the emergency ambulance service, it has made substantial progress in meeting its performance target. We are determined to continue to improve service level and quality, and achieve agreed performance target through a combination of injection of additional resources and comprehensive management improvements in 1999-2000.
Concluding Remarks
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As our Progress Report shows, we have generally lived up to our commitments in the security programme area last year, and we seek to do more in the coming year. I believe our objectives and our strategies are in the right direction. We have a professional and competent corps of disciplined services committed to do their best for the community. We are determined to improve our performance, but we can only do so with the support of the community and the legislature.
End/Friday, October 9, 1998
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