'FEHD Lax In Checking Cleaning Contractor Records'

The Ombudsman said on Thursday that the government’s system for monitoring the service of outsourced street cleaning contractors is not good enough to deter bad performance or stop them from getting the contracts again.

After an investigation, the Ombudsman Winnie Chiu said there were more than 1,100 times last year when payments were cut because of poor performance.

She said the total amount withheld was around HK$2.75 million. But this works out at an average of just HK$81,000 for the 34 contracts that were in place.

Chiu said this system by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) fails to incorporate a deterrent element in the performance monitoring mechanism.

The department has records to reflect the past performance of the contractors. But these records do not appear to have any impact as some contractors continued to get tenders despite low scores, the investigation found after scrutinising new contracts from April last year.

“Six of the 14 winning bidders scored zero points for past performances, which is something of a great deal of concern to us – as to how the FEHD differentiates the good and bad performances of contractors and awards the tendering contracts accordingly,” Chiu said.

She noted that out of a maximum score of 7.5 for past performances, the highest grade given by the department had only been 3.

Chiu said a contractor could be suspended under a demerit system – but only for employment-related problems, not poor performance. No firm has been blacklisted under this system in the past decade.

The ombudsman said the department should consider introducing a separate incentive system so that contractors have greater motivation to improve service quality.