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Following is a question by the Hon Michael Tien and a reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in the Legislative Council today (October 28):
Question:
A large number of members of the public have relayed to me that water dripping from air-conditioners has caused grave nuisance to them, including generating noise and dirtying clothes, and the problem is very common in various districts across the territory. It has been reported that in the years 2004 to 2014, the authorities received over 170 000 complaints in total but issued 5 256 warning letters and instituted 12 prosecutions only, with the prosecution rate standing at a mere 0.007 per cent. In the first half of this year alone, the authorities received 8 900 complaints, and no prosecution has been instituted yet. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) given that while the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) may take law enforcement actions under the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance (including issuing Nuisance Notices and Nuisance Orders to the persons causing the nuisance or the occupiers or the owners of the relevant premises) to require the persons concerned to abate the nuisance within a specified period, the maximum penalties for failure to comply with such notices and orders are merely a fine of $10,000 and $25,000 respectively (plus a daily fine), whether the Government has reviewed if such penalties are effective in pressing the persons concerned to expeditiously resolve the problem of dripping air-conditioners; if it has reviewed and the outcome is in the negative, whether the Government will increase the penalties to enhance the deterrent effect; and
(2) given that while the authorities indicated in their reply to a question raised by a member of this Council in 2013 that in order to raise public awareness of the problem of dripping air-conditioners, "FEHD disseminates relevant messages in the summer through releasing Announcements in the Public Interest on television and radio, and distributing posters and leaflets to owners' corporations, mutual aid committees, property management companies of buildings and members of the public", some members of the public have pointed out that such publicity efforts have little impact and FEHD frontline staff are under considerable pressure, whether the Government will set up a dedicated team to handle the problem of dripping air-conditioners and pertinent complaint cases in a more efficient manner, and provide training courses to staff members on handling more difficult cases?
Reply:
President,
The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) has all along been vigilant about the nuisance caused by water dripping from air-conditioners. Apart from handling complaints, the FEHD conducts special inspections at black spots of dripping air conditioners with heavy pedestrian flow (such as roadside bus stops, public light bus stands and pedestrian crossings) during different hours of the day including early morning and the evening.
Upon receiving a complaint on dripping air-conditioners from the public or noticing a nuisance during routine inspections, the FEHD will send a health inspector responsible for the district concerned to carry out investigation as soon as possible. In most cases, after receiving the rectification request (including verbal warning and advisory letter) issued by the FEHD's officers, the flat owners or occupants concerned will take remedial action to abate the nuisance caused by water dripping from their air-conditioners. If the verbal warning or advisory letter is unheeded, the FEHD will issue a Nuisance Notice. A Nuisance Notice requires the relevant person to abate the nuisance within the period specified in the notice. Any person who fails to comply with the requirements stated in the Nuisance Notice will be prosecuted and is liable upon conviction to a maximum penalty of $10,000 and a daily fine of $200 should the offence persist. Besides, after the person has been convicted of failing to comply with the Nuisance Notice, should the nuisance which gives rise to the offence persist, the FEHD will apply to the court for a Nuisance Order requiring the person concerned to comply with the requirement within the period specified in the Order. Failure to comply with the requirement of the Nuisance Order may lead to prosecution. Upon conviction, the offender is liable to a maximum penalty of $25,000 and a daily fine of $450 should the offence persist.
From 2004 to 2014, the FEHD received, on average, about 15 000 complaints every year related to water dripping from air-conditioners. During the same period, the FEHD has issued a total of 5 261 Nuisance Notices. Annex 1 gives the number of complaints received and Nuisance Notices issued in each year.
Under the current legislation and system, if the dripping water has been properly collected or drained away without causing any nuisance, the water dripping nuisance is considered to be abated. Generally speaking, water dripping from air-conditioners is usually caused by minor problems such as bad or loose connection of rubber drain hoses, blockage to drainage outlets or absence of water drip pans. The flat owners or occupants concerned are generally able to properly repair the air-conditioners with dripping problem within a short time. Therefore, in a great majority of the cases, the FEHD does not need to take further prosecution action. In the past 10 years, the FEHD instituted prosecutions in 12 cases for non-compliance with the Nuisance Notice.
Each summer, the FEHD will release announcements in the public interest on media such as television and radio, and produce posters and leaflets for distribution to owners' corporations, mutual aid committees and property management agents (PMAs), for the purpose of reminding the public to conduct regular repair and maintenance for air-conditioners in the interest of preventing water dripping nuisance. The FEHD launched in 2005 a pilot scheme entitled "Participation by Property Management Agents in Tackling Dripping Air-conditioners". It extended the scheme to the whole territory in 2009. Under the scheme, PMAs of private housing estates are invited to assist in handling complaints about dripping air-conditioners in their housing estates during the summer season. Currently, 33 PMAs covering 120 private housing estates in the territory have participated in the scheme. In 2014, a total of some 7 400 water dripping cases were handled by participating PMAs. The FEHD will continue to promote the scheme each summer.
My reply to the various parts of the question is as follows:
(1) At present, the maximum penalty for failure to comply with the requirements of a Nuisance Notice or Nuisance Order is a fine of $10,000 and $25,000 respectively. As mentioned earlier, most of the owners or occupants will promptly rectify the problem after receiving warnings or Nuisance Notices from FEHD officers to avoid prosecution or penalty. It is therefore evident that the existing penalty level carries reasonably strong deterrence.
For the 12 prosecutions instituted in the past, the fines imposed by the court ranged between $300 and $2,500. Since the penalties imposed are some distance away from the statutory maximum level, we will review the situation but have not given consideration to increasing the penalty for the time being.
(2) I hope honourable members and the public will understand the difficulties inherent in handling complaints about water dripping from air-conditioners, including the following:
(i) cases of nuisance caused by water dripping from air-conditioners mostly occur at night or in the early morning. It is at times difficult for investigating officers to locate the source of nuisance in dim light;
(ii) most residential blocks are high-rise buildings with air-conditioners installed vertically at the same location on each floor. This prolongs the investigation process as there may be multiple sources of dripping;
(iii) in the course of conducting enquiries, we may run into cases where the occupants or owners are not at home or less than willing to co-operate. These add difficulties to the investigation work; and
(iv) there are also cases where the water dripping problem recurs shortly after the air-conditioners have been repaired.
At present, about 290 health inspectors are deployed to 19 district environmental hygiene offices across the territory to handle environmental hygiene issues in the district, including inspecting licensed food premises and non-food premises (e.g. commercial bathhouses and cinemas) and dealing with the relevant licensing matters, prosecuting unlicensed food premises, processing licence applications for operating temporary places of public entertainment, investigating food complaints and food poisoning cases, as well as complaints related to environmental hygiene nuisances. In 2014, they have to act on more than 49 000 complaints related to environmental hygiene nuisances, among which over 19 000 cases involved dripping air-conditioners.
As cases of nuisance caused by water dripping from air-conditioners tend to cluster in the summer months, the workload of the district environmental hygiene offices of the FEHD may register a substantial increase within a short period of time in summer (Note). To reduce the work pressure of front-line officers in handling such cases in summer, the FEHD has implemented a pilot scheme in the summer of last year and this year. Under the pilot scheme, retired health inspectors are recruited on short-term contracts such that the district environmental hygiene offices could make good use of their experience to help handle these problems in the districts. Besides, conscious of the difficulties that its staff may face when handling environmental hygiene complaint cases, the FEHD organises experience sharing sessions and workshops on complaint handling skills for its staff from time to time, including experience sharing sessions on cases investigated by the Office of the Ombudsman. Where necessary, the FEHD will invite officers from other departments with the relevant professional knowledge to brief its front-line staff.
We will review the FEHD's current practice of recruiting extra contract staff in the summer months to support frontline staff in handling the problem of water dripping from air-conditioners. Subject to the availability of resources, we will also consider setting up a dedicated team to focus on more complicated cases in various districts.
In the final analysis, to effectively resolve this problem, enforcement action on the part of the Government alone would not suffice. Support from the community as a whole is called for. With members of the public each exercising self-discipline and playing their due role in keeping their air-conditioners in good repair, our collective efforts would help bring social harmony and a good living environment. Thank you President.
Note: Annex 2 gives the number of complaints about water dripping from air-conditioners received in each month of 2014.
Ends/Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Issued at HKT 17:14
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