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Following is a question by the Hon. Choy So-yuk and a reply by the Secretary for the Environment and Food, Mrs Lily Yam, in the Legislative Council meeting today (October 31):

Question

It is learnt that a contractor has been commissioned to collect livestock waste from farmers, who then delivers a certain quantity of the collected waste to Sha Ling Livestock Waste Consolidation Plant for composting and transports the remaining quantity of waste to landfills for disposal. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council of:

(a) the criteria it adopted for commissioning the contractor and the expiry date of the relevant commissioning contract;

(b) the average daily tonnage of livestock waste currently collected by the contractor, the respective amounts of such collected waste delivered to Sha Ling Livestock Waste Consolidation Plant for composting and to landfills, as well as the landfills involved; and

(c) the respective annual payments made to the contractor and to the landfill operators for disposal of the livestock waste; whether it has assessed if the existing arrangements have in fact resulted in double payment of fees and whether this is reasonable, and how long this situation has existed?

Reply

(a) The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) followed the open tender procedures established by the Government's Central Tender Board in awarding the livestock waste collection contract to the current contractor. Both the tender assessment criteria and selection outcome were approved by the Board.

In assessing the tenders, EPD's major considerations were the tenderers' experience, equipment and technical capability in collecting livestock waste and in operating composting plants, as well as their financial status and tender price. The contract commenced on July 1 2000 and will expire on June 30 2004.

(b) The contractor currently collects about 150 tonnes of livestock wastes each day. Since the Shaling Composting Plant can only treat a maximum of 20 tonnes of wastes each day, EPD has requested the contractor to deliver 20 tonnes of wastes to the Shaling Composting Plant for treatment. The remaining 130 tonnes are delivered direct from the farms to the West New Territories Landfill and the North East New Territories Landfill for disposal.

(c) EPD pays an annual fee of about $13 million to the contractor. This amount is mainly for the collection of livestock wastes from farms. Separately, in the past four years, EPD pays an average of about $8 million each year to the landfill contractors for handling livestock wastes.

EPD only pays the livestock wastes collection contractor the fees for the collection service and for composting some of the wastes. Hence, there is no double payment of fees.

End/Wednesday, October 31, 2001

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