Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Cheuk Wing-hing, at a media session after inspecting a hygiene black spot at a rear lane today (August 14):

Reporter: There are 600 hygiene black spots. How will you follow-up the dirty alleys and hygiene black spots? My second question is, how are you going to handle the complaints from the citizens? You said you will develop a system at the press conference on Friday, can you be more specific on how are you going to handle the complaints from the citizens? Will this campaign cost more workload for the cleaners? How will you ensure their legal rights? Thank you.

Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration: Can you repeat your first question? I can't hear you very clearly.

Reporter: There are more dirty alleys in the list and more than 600 hygiene black spots as mentioned, how will you do the follow-up?

Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration: As I just mentioned in Chinese, we will carry out extensive cleansing operation in all the black spots, including back lanes, and we will be doing that continuously. In the foreseeable future, I do not expect to remove those black spots, including back lanes, from our target list. Although the target list is living, currently we have around 600 black spots, that number may grow in response to community feedback about other hygiene black spots.

     Your question about handling complaints. That is something that we are very concerned about. Currently, members of the public can lodge complaints through the government hotline. And I have heard feedback that sometimes this system doesn't effectively work, we have to look into that, but I can assure you that whether it is through that government hotline or through departmental hotlines or what not, we will provide effective channels for members of the public to reflect their hygiene concerns to us.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Sunday, August 14, 2022
Issued at HKT 16:55

NNNN