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The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) will begin implementing the Government's five-day week initiative from July 1.
Some of the department's front-line/counter services will cease to operate on Saturdays, but longer working hours during the week will compensate for the move.
The offices affected are the Pay Office of the FEHD, the shroff service of the Hawker and Market Offices and Licence Issuing Offices, the counter for Application and Collection of Import Licence, the Communication Resource Unit and the Restaurant Licensing Resource Centre.
The opening hours of these offices will be changed with effect from July 1 as shown in the Annex.
A spokesman for the department said payment of departmental and related charges could be made at the Pay Office of the FEHD or by post. Market stall rent payments could be made at Post Offices, by post, by using the Payment by Phone Service (PPS), through the Internet, or at an Automated Teller Machine (ATM).
The department's Health Education Exhibition and Resource Centre in Kowloon Park, Tsim Sha Tsui, will also implement a five-day week from July 1. Its opening hours will be changed to 8.45am to 6.15pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 11am to 9pm on Sundays. The centre will be closed on Mondays and Thursdays.
The spokesman said the business hours of offices that are moving to a five-day week, for instance the Headquarters and District Environmental Hygiene Offices, would be extended on weekdays, generally from 8.45am to 6pm.
"In implementing the new work pattern, the overall level and efficiency of our services will be maintained and there will be no reduction in the hours of service of individual staff," the spokesman said.
He stressed that essential services, such as street-cleaning, refuse collection, hawker management and control work, import inspection by food control offices and the duty rooms (for reporting food complaints), would not be affected and would continue to operate seven days a week.
In addition, the business hours of the Cremation Booking Offices, Permit Offices of Cemeteries and Crematoria Section and all the six crematoria managed by the department will remain unchanged.
Members of the public could visit the department's website at www.fehd.gov.hk for details of the opening hours for front-line/counter services.
For enquiries, they could call the FEHD hotline at 2868 0000 or the Government hotline at 1823.
Ends/Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Issued at HKT 17:48
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