The Home Affairs Department today refuted an unfounded allegation made by Sham Shui Po District Council (SSPDC) member Ramon Yuen against the council’s secretariat.
In a statement, the department clarified that section 61 of the District Councils Ordinance specifies that all items for discussion and papers of a District Council (DC) must be compatible with the DC functions specified in the ordinance.
When handling DC affairs, District Offices will consult the relevant bureaus and departments to examine whether an item for discussion is compatible with DC functions. If an item is not compatible, the Government will follow up accordingly, such as writing to the DC Chairman concerned about the problem and request the Chairman to follow up, etc.
If the DC concerned still keeps the items that are not compatible with the ordinance for discussion, the DC Secretariat cannot provide secretariat support for these matters, including drafting minutes and uploading the relevant audio to the DC website, etc, and secretariat staff or other government officers will neither attend the relevant parts of the meeting nor join the discussion of the relevant papers.
The department pointed out that this is the established practice.
It noted that at the 4th meeting on June 23, 2020 and the 5th meeting on September 8, 2020, since some items for discussion raised by members were not compatible with the DC functions as set out in the ordinance, the SSPDC Secretariat, following the established practice, did not provide support for those items for discussion.
During the 6th SSPDC meeting on November 10, 2020, Mr Yuen proposed to include supplementary paragraphs in the minutes on discussions in the 4th and the 5th DC Meeting which were found to be incompatible with the DC ordinance.
The then District Officer (Sham Shui Po) had already pointed out that the SSPDC Secretariat would not provide secretariat support for items not compatible with DC functions. The SSPDC Secretariat would not take any follow-up actions in relation to the concerned records, even if the supplementary paragraphs had been passed by the DC. Therefore, the audio of relevant discussions was not uploaded to the DC website.
It added that the SSPDC Secretariat circulated the draft minutes of the 6th meeting to members before the 7th meeting held on February 23. Members decided at the meeting to postpone discussing the draft minutes.
At today's meeting, the SSPDC Secretariat submitted the draft minutes of the 6th meeting for members' consideration in accordance with established procedures. All members, including Mr Yuen, have a right to propose amendments to the draft at the meeting. However, he did not propose any amendments.
The department said Mr Yuen did not propose to the SSPDC Secretariat any amendments to the draft during the past three weeks and that it deeply regretted that he chose to make an unfounded allegation.
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