A 03/04-15
| 1.No.50 | - | Estate Agents Authority Annual Report 2002/2003 | |
| (to be presented by Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands)
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| 2.No.51 | - | Report of changes to the approved Estimates of Expenditure approved during the second quarter of 2003-04 (Public Finance Ordinance : Section 8) | |
| (to be presented by Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury)
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| 3.No.52 | - | Consumer Council Annual Report 2002-2003 | |
| (to be presented by Secretary for Economic Development and Labour)
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| 4.No.53 | - | Legal Aid Services Council Annual Report 2002-2003 | |
| (to be presented by Chief Secretary for Administration)
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| 5. | Report of the Bills Committee on Education (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2003 | ||
| (to be presented by Hon Cyd HO, Chairman of the Bills Committee) | |||
| (a) | of the number of course instructors employed by LCSD who will soon reach the age of 60 as well as the types of courses in which they are engaged, and the other government departments which also set the retirement age for their contract staff;
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| (b) | whether it will consider not applying the above retirement age to the course instructors employed by LCSD on agreement terms; if not, the reasons for that; and
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| (c) | whether, apart from age, other factors such as the health of the instructors concerned will be taken into account by LCSD in deciding whether or not to renew the employment of its course instructors who are over, at or will soon reach the age of 60? |
| (a) | the specific instructions, as set out in the police internal guidelines concerning anti-vice operations issued to police officers, on the conduct of police officers while posing as clients in order to gather evidence for charging vice-operators (commonly known as "covert operations");
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| (b) | the criteria adopted by the Police for determining which types of body contact are considered acceptable; and
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| (c) | the Police's justifications for its view that body contact is genuinely necessary for collecting evidence? |
| (a) | of the current number of intermediaries in Hong Kong providing overseas studies services to local students, and whether it knows the number of students who went overseas for further studies through these intermediaries in each of the past three years;
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| (b) | of the respective numbers of complaints received by the Education and Manpower Bureau and the Consumer Council about the services of these intermediaries in each of the past three years; and
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| (c) | how it regulates the services of the above intermediaries? |
| Public Officers to reply | : |
Secretary for Education and Manpower Secretary for Economic Development and Labour |
| (a) | the number of applications from employers that ImmD received, the number of applications it approved and the percentage of this number in the annual average number of FDHs, as well as the number of rejected cases and the reasons for rejection, in each year from 2000 to 2003;
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| (b) | the mechanism and criteria adopted by ImmD in vetting these applications, and whether it has carried out a comprehensive review on the vetting mechanism and the criteria, as well as on their effectiveness; if it has, of the outcome; if not, whether it will do so; and
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| (c) | the monitoring measures adopted by ImmD against employers who instruct their FDHs to perform motor driving duties not incidental to domestic duties; and of the total number of such cases found since the implementation of the arrangement and how they have been handled? |
| (a) | how it will penalize the above contractor and monitor fly tipping of public fills and construction and demolition ("C&D") wastes by contractors; and whether it will review the Trip Ticket System; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
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| (b) | of the respective amounts of contractors' fly tipping of public fills and C&D wastes, and the numbers of cases in which the dumping locations were not the ones marked on the trip tickets in each of the past three years; and
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| (c) | of the measures to deal with owners who dump debris at their land which has ecological value and engage in other activities which will upset the ecology of their land? |
| (a) | the criteria adopted by the Hospital Authority ("HA") in determining whether or not to award year-end bonuses to its management staff;
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| (b) | whether HA plans to award year-end bonuses to them this year; if it does, of the estimated total amount; and
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| (c) | whether HA has reviewed if the award of year-end bonuses despite the fiscal deficits conforms to the principle of proper use of public funds; if it has; of the results; if not, whether such a review will be conducted? |
| (a) | of the respective numbers of Government-commissioned consultancy studies conducted by the tertiary institutions in Hong Kong in each of the past five years, as well as the study topics and the amounts of consultancy fees involved; and
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| (b) | of the percentages of the consultancy fees that were paid to the eight University Grants Committee-funded tertiary institutions, in the Administrations' total expenditure on consultancy fees in each of the past five years? |
| (a) | the locations of the ATMs at which the criminals got hold of the victims' PINs;
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| (b) | the Police's ways to curb such crimes, and whether beat officers have been asked to keep watch on the activities in the vicinity of ATMs; and
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| (c) | the progress of the study, undertaken by HKMA with banks and relevant institutions, on upgrading the security level of ATM cards? |
| (a) | whether it has issued instructions on ways to safeguard the safety of cleaners responsible for cleaning the above carriageways and flyovers;
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| (b) | whether any street cleaners were injured or killed in traffic accidents while at work in the past three years; if so, of the dates of the traffic accidents, the casualties involved and other details; and
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| (c) | if there were such traffic accidents, whether the authorities checked if the subcontractors involved had taken out employees' compensation insurance for the street cleaners concerned; if checking was done, of the results; if not, the reasons for that? |
| (a) | of the handling procedures followed by the authorities upon receipt of the above complaints;
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| (b) | whether it will consider implementing measures such as a registration system to regulate these education consultancy firms, so as to safeguard the interests of local students planning to study abroad; and
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| (c) | of the measures in place to enhance its assistance to local students seeking to study abroad? |
| (a) | of its plans and measures to encourage manufacturers, including those who intend to return to Hong Kong, to set up factories in Hong Kong; if it has no such plans, of the reasons for that;
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| (b) | of the promotion strategies formulated to attract local and overseas investors and manufacturers to invest or set up factories in Hong Kong, and whether it has estimated, as a result of the promotion and incentive measures, the number of factories drawn to Hong Kong and the number of new local jobs created for each industry annually in the next few years; if so, the results of its estimation; and
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| (c) | in the light of the recent discussions in the community on the prospects of the local industries and manufacturing sector after the implementation of CEPA, whether it has assessed the role of the local industries and manufacturing sector in Hong Kong's economic development in the next decade; if so, of the assessment results? |
| (a) | the numbers of urgent calls for ambulance service in 2002 and 2003 respectively, with a breakdown of such cases by the class determined according to the criteria of the above classification system, and the time lapse between the making of a call for service and the arrival of an ambulance at the scene to pick up the patient;
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| (b) | the time FSD plans to implement the classification system, and whether there will be public consultation before its implementation;
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| (c) | the details of the staff training programmes before implementing the classification system; and
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| (d) | the measures FSD will take, after implementing the classification system, to prevent delay in treating patients due to inaccurate information supplied by the caller for ambulance service? |
| (a) | of the justifications for capping the amount of funding at $800,000 per research project, and the measures to support research institutions in carrying out large-scale research projects with a cost above the cap;
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| (b) | whether expenses on upgrading laboratory or research facilities fall within the scope of funding;
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| (c) | of the number of funding applications received so far and, among them, the respective numbers of applications submitted by individual local institutions, multiple local institutions and joint applications by local and Mainland institutions; the research institution(s) involved in each application;
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| (d) | of the number of applications vetted, the respective amounts of funding applied for and approved for each of the research projects which are related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or other emerging infectious diseases, and the commencement dates of work of the funded projects;
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| (e) | whether the relevant authorities and the Grant Review Committee coordinate the sharing of research results by the funded research institutions, with a view to enhancing the cost-effectiveness and progress of their researches;
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| (f) | of the ownership of the intellectual property rights of the research results of the funded projects; and (g) whether the Administration has treated research projects conducted locally and in the Mainland with the same standards with regard to the assessment criteria, the scope of research that may be financed and the amount applicable, monitoring of research progress and the ownership of the intellectual property rights of the research results of such projects? |
| (a) | if the Housing Authority ("HA") has set specific requirements for the designs of PSPS estates and requires that the contractors' designs should meet such requirements;
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| (b) | the number and types of complaints received by HA about the designs of PSPS estates in each of the past ten years; and among them, the number of cases already resolved; and
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| (c) | the number of PSPS flats newly completed in each of the past ten years and, among them, the number of flats returned to HA by occupants who considered that there were design problems? |
| (a) | the location, area and years of occupation of individual pieces of government land with the above situation in the past five years, the commercial activities undertaken, as well as the government department(s) responsible for regulating such activities and the details of the follow-up actions taken; whether the authorities have assessed the turnover of such commercial activities and the amount of rent payable; if so, of the assessment results; and
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| (b) | the follow-up actions the authorities have taken against the unauthorized occupation of government land for use as premises for the sale of food or food processing, so as to ensure food hygiene and safety as well as safeguard public health; whether the authorities will consider conducting inter-departmental joint operations to resolve the problem? |
| (a) | of the respective numbers of cases of various types of infectious diseases reported over the past three months, and how these figures compare to the relevant figures of the same period in each of the past three years;
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| (b) | whether the Administration has studied why, despite the implementation of measures for preventing the recurrence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and massive outbreaks of other infectious diseases, there are still outbreaks of infectious diseases in the community; if it has, of the results of the study; and
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| (c) | whether the Administration will expedite the establishment of the Centre for Health Protection, enhance its connection with neighbouring areas or nations and those currently affected by an outbreak of infectious disease, and release information to the public on strengthening protection against infectious diseases as soon as there are signs of such an outbreak in Hong Kong? |
| (a) | the procedure and criteria adopted by HKCAA for validating programmes offered by institutions and the time normally required to complete the validation;
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| (b) | the number of programmes the validation of which were passed within six months and its percentage in all programmes for which validation were completed; and
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| (c) | the names of the programmes the validation of which were passed within six months and the institutions involved, and whether the time taken for validating these programmes was shorter than that normally required; if so, of the reasons for that? |
| (a) | it will amend the Employees' Compensation Ordinance (Cap. 282) to bring Chinese medicine expenses and CMPs' fees into the ambit of "medical expenses" in the Ordinance and hence into the coverage of mandatory employee insurance; if it will, of the legislative timetable; if not, the reasons for that; and
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| (b) | it will adopt measures to encourage the insurance sector to include Chinese medicine expenses and CMPs' fees in the coverage of optional medical insurance; if so, of the details of the measures; if not, the reasons for that? |
| (a) | of the respective dates on which the Civil Engineering Department ("CED") and the consultancy firm it hired to supervise the project learnt that the boulders came from the Tung Chung River; given that the construction contract had stipulated that the boulders should come from lawful sources, of the reasons why CED did not immediately ban such boulders from being transported into the construction site; whether there has been dereliction of duty on the part of the staff of CED and the consultancy firm; if so, how they will be penalised;
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| (b) | of the respective dates at which other government departments, including the Islands District Office, Lands Department, Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and the Territory Development Department, came to notice the above activities and the follow-up actions taken by these departments; given that it was reported that the illegal excavation has been conducted for a long time on the government land without their noticing it, whether it has assessed if there are loopholes in the monitoring system concerned; if the assessment result is in the affirmative, how it will plug these loopholes; if the assessment result is in the negative, of the justifications for that;
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| (c) | of the number of complaints received in the past three years about illegal excavation of natural materials for works and, among them, the number of cases in which the offenders were prosecuted and convicted;
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| (d) | whether it has reviewed if the penalties on acts of eco-vandalism stipulated in the existing legislation in respect of rivers lying respectively on Government and private land have adequate deterrent effects; if it has, of the results; if not, the reasons for that;
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| (e) | whether any immediate measures other than legislative means will be put in place to deter acts of eco-vandalism in rivers; if so, of the details of such measures; and
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| (f) | whether it will consider giving up the use of natural boulders in the above construction project for the artificial lake or similar government projects; if not, the reasons for that? |
| Vocational Training Council (Amendment) Bill 2003 | : | Secretary for Education and Manpower
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| Education (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2003 | : | Secretary for Education and Manpower |
| (a) | in section 4(2) -
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| (i) | in paragraph (a)(ii), by repealing "and" at the end;
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| (ii) | in paragraph (b), by repealing the full stop at the end and substituting "; and";
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| (iii) | by adding -
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| (b) | in section 5(1), by repealing "at any time within 21 days thereafter" and substituting ", at any time within 21 days thereafter but before the receipt by the Council representative of notification from the relevant person as to whether he wishes to discuss the matter with the Council representative,". | |
| Ling Liang World-Wide Evangelistic Mission Incorporation (Amendment) Bill 2003 | : | Hon Kenneth TING |