Hong Kong – Effectiveness and situation of first phase of territory-wide large-scale anti-illicit cigarette enforcement operation “Tempest” by Hong Kong Customs (with photo)

Effectiveness and situation of first phase of territory-wide large-scale anti-illicit cigarette enforcement operation “Tempest” by Hong Kong Customs (with photo)

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     Hong Kong Customs mounted a territory-wide large-scale special operation codenamed “Tempest” in mid-February to step up enforcement in combating illicit cigarette activities on all fronts at each control point and all districts across the territory in Hong Kong. In the first phase of the operation (as of February 28), Customs detected a total of 560 related cases and seized about 16 million suspected illicit cigarettes, about 1 760 grams of cigars, and about 400g of manufactured tobacco products with a total estimated market value of about $62 million and a duty potential of about $43 million. During the operation, Customs arrested 538 persons aged between 18 and 83, and detained three vehicles suspected to be used for illicit cigarette distribution. Furthermore, Customs has collaborated with the Tobacco and Alcohol Control Office of the Department of Health to crack down on the distribution of illicit cigarette promotion leaflets in public housing estates and the sale of illicit cigarettes through telephone orders.
      
     At the cross-boundary smuggling level, Customs has stepped up efforts to combat smuggling of tobacco products at airport, port, land boundary, rail and ferry control points, and detected a total of 17 illicit cigarette smuggling cases. Moreover, Customs imposed penalties to 481 incoming passengers on offences compoundable under the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance (imposing penalty instead of prosecution), with total penalties of $2 million. During the operation, a total of about 90,000 suspected duty-not-paid illicit cigarettes, about 1 760 grams of suspected duty-not-paid cigars and about 400g of suspected duty-not-paid manufactured tobacco products were seized.
      
     During the operation, Customs also detected a large-scale cigarettes smuggling case. Through risk assessment and intelligence analysis on February 22, Customs officers at the Kwai Chung Customhouse Cargo Examination Compound selected for inspection a 40-foot container, declared as carrying plastic boxes and mouse pads, arriving from United Arab Emirates to Hong Kong. Upon inspection, Customs officers found 4.2 million suspected illicit cigarettes in the container.
      
     At the storage and distribution level, Customs also cracked down on illicit cigarette storage centres downtown. Among them, Customs shut down a large-scale mobile illicit cigarette storage centre. Customs officers identified on February 22 a cigarette smuggling syndicate active in Tuen Mun District and raided a medium goods vehicle and a 40-foot container parked in an open-air parking lot in Tuen Mun that night. After searches, Customs officers seized about 3.2 million and 5.4 million suspected illicit cigarettes in the vehicle and container respectively, and arrested a 26-year-old man suspected to be connected with the case.
      
     Customs has also taken strict enforcement actions against small illicit cigarette storage and distribution centres downtown. Customs cracked down on an illicit cigarette storage and distribution centre at a subdivided unit in an urban area, commonly known as a “subdivided room”. Customs officers seized about 350 000 suspected illicit cigarettes from the “subdivided room” in Sham Shui Po on February 21 and arrested a 53-year-old woman suspected to be connected with the case.
      
     At the peddling and retail level, Customs during the operation arrested a total of 30 men and five women in various districts across Hong Kong, including 25 buyers and 10 sellers. Most of the relevant cases involved buying and selling of small quantities of illicit cigarettes for personal use.
      
     All the above-mentioned cases have been duly followed up. Customs will continue to trace the source and flow of the illicit cigarettes. The likelihood of further arrests is not ruled out.
      
     Customs will continue to step up enforcement to vigorously combat different levels of illicit cigarette activities through risk assessment, intelligence analysis and interception at source.
      
     Smuggling is a serious offence. Under the Import and Export Ordinance, any person found guilty of importing or exporting unmanifested cargo is liable to a maximum fine of $2 million and imprisonment for seven years.
      
     Customs reminds members of the public that it is an offence to buy or sell illicit cigarettes. Under the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance, anyone involved in dealing with, possession of, selling or buying illicit cigarettes commits an offence. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a fine of $1 million and imprisonment for two years.
      
     Under the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance, incoming passengers, who fail to declare or make a false or incomplete declaration to a Customs officer on the quantity of dutiable goods in their possession which are in excess of the duty-free concessions are liable to prosecution. In 2023, the maximum penalty imposed by the court for possession of dutiable commodities by an incoming passenger is $20,000, and the maximum imprisonment sentence is three months.
      
     Customs may consider imposing penalty on offences compoundable under the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance. Under the “Compounding Scheme”, an offender is required to pay a penalty five times the equivalent of the duty payable on the dutiable goods concerned plus a fine of $2,000. Under the new duty rates of tobacco, if a passenger brings an extra pack of 200 stick cigarettes which are in excess of the duty-free concessions into Hong Kong without declaring it to Customs officers, the offender is required to pay a penalty of $5,306 under the “Compounding Scheme”
      
     Members of the public may report any suspected illicit cigarette activities to Customs’ 24-hour hotline 2545 6182 or its dedicated crime-reporting email account (crimereport@customs.gov.hk) or online form (eform.cefs.gov.hk/form/ced002).

Hong Kong – LCQ16: Utilisation situation of government car parks

LCQ16: Utilisation situation of government car parks

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     Following is a question by the Hon Chan Hok-fung and a written reply by the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Mr Christopher Hui, in the Legislative Council today (January 11):
 
Question:
 
     At present, the Transport Department (TD) and the Government Property Agency (GPA) are responsible for the management of more than 20 government car parks and multi-storey public car parks, with the latter responsible for the management of car parks in joint-user government buildings (e.g. Government Offices). However, most of the car parking spaces in the car parks managed by GPA are restricted to the Government’s internal use during daytime on weekdays (i.e. Monday to Friday), and are only opened up for public use during non-office hours (i.e. weekday evenings, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays). In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
 
(1) of the average utilisation rates of government car parks or car parking spaces managed by government departments (i.e. TD and GPA) during daytime (i.e. from 7am to 7pm) and night-time (i.e. from 7pm to 7am the following day) over the past year, with a breakdown by District Council district; the charges for such car parks or car parking spaces over the past year;
 
(2) given that individual car parks managed by GPA (e.g. Cheung Sha Wan Government Offices and Chai Wan Municipal Services Building) are opened up for public use during daytime on weekdays, of the criteria based on which the Government determines whether a government car park is opened up for public use during daytime on weekdays;
 
(3) as some members of the public have relayed to me that the car park of Queensway Government Offices is only for use by government vehicles during daytime on weekdays, but its daily average utilisation rate has been below 25 per cent for a long time, of the hourly utilisation rate of the car park in the past three months; the reasons for the Government not opening up such car park for public use round the clock; and
 
(4) whether the Government will, having regard to the utilisation situations of some government car parks during daytime on weekdays, open up those car parks for public use round the clock, so as to alleviate the problem of shortage of car parking spaces in urban areas; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:
 
President,
 
     Having consulted the Transport and Logistics Bureau and the Environment and Ecology Bureau, my reply to the Member’s question is as follows:
 
(1) to (3) At present, the Transport Department (TD) provides 10 Government multi-storey public car parks and one car park offering parking spaces for coaches. The car parks are managed by TD through its contractors, and are open for public use throughout the day. The average daytime and night-time utilisation rates of parking spaces for private cars (PC) and vans in the past year and current fees of these 11 government car parks are set out at Annex I and Annex II respectively.
 
     As regards government joint-user general office buildings (JUBs) managed by the Government Property Agency (GPA), the parking spaces in the car parks therein are primarily for official purpose and used by the government user departments of the JUBs. The user departments are responsible for allocating the parking spaces and approving the eligible vehicles list, and take the management responsibility. GPA does not have record of the utilisation rate of the user departments’ parking spaces in car parks of the relevant JUBs.
 
     The primary purpose of car parks at JUBs is for use by vehicles of the user departments or vehicles related to official purpose during office hours. To optimise the use of land resources, GPA regularly consults user departments of JUBs on their operational requirements for parking spaces during non-office hours (normally night-time of weekdays, and Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays). In general, the user departments would take into account whether any of their allocated parking spaces is surplus to their operation needs, and assess from security and operation perspectives the impact of leasing out such surplus parking spaces for operation of fee-paying car parks for public use during non-office hours to them. Subject to the user departments’ agreement and under feasible circumstances, GPA would consider issues including technicalities, management, operation and maintenance in leasing out the relevant surplus parking spaces to contractors to operate fee-paying car parks for public use during non-office hours.
 
     Taking the Queensway Government Offices mentioned in the question as an example, the JUB’s car park provides 190 parking spaces for PC. These parking spaces are for use by government departments for official purpose during office hours. As for non-office hours, GPA has already leased out 159 parking spaces, which are surplus to the user departments’ operational requirements, for use as a fee-paying public car park in accordance with the abovementioned arrangement.
 
     Separately, there are also parking spaces in some JUBs’ car parks, and car parks of other types of government properties (for example, Specialist/Departmental Buildings) that are planned for public use for the whole day (including daytime of weekdays) during the development planning and design stage. Examples are the car parks of the Cheung Sha Wan Government Offices and Chai Wan Municipal Services Building mentioned in the question. On instructions of relevant government departments, GPA has leased out these parking spaces to contractors for operation of fee-paying public car parks.
 
     At present, GPA is leasing out 13 car parks located at JUBs and three car parks at other types of government properties to contractors for operation of fee-paying public car parks. According to information provided by the contractors, the average utilisation rates during the operating hours in the past six months (i.e. from June to November 2022) and the current fees of the car parks are listed at Annex III.

(4) In order to explore the feasibility of making more parking spaces available for leasing out as fee-paying public car parks, GPA would regularly consult the user or management departments of car parks in government properties leased out by GPA on the utilisation of their parking spaces, such as whether there are parking spaces surplus to the departments’ operational requirements during office hours, and whether there are more parking spaces surplus to the departments’ operational requirements during non-office hours.
 
     In recent years, the Government has been continuously pursuing a host of short-term and medium- to long-term measures to increase parking provision, including the provision of parking spaces in suitable “Government, Institution or Community” facilities and public open space projects following the principle of “single site, multiple uses”, designating suitable on-street locations as night-time parking spaces, and taking forward automated parking system projects. Furthermore, TD completed the revision of the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines in 2021, which has raised the number of ancillary parking spaces for PCs in private and subsidised housing developments and increased the type and number of parking spaces for commercial vehicles in subsidised housing developments. TD will continue to examine the parking needs of different types of vehicles in various districts and to provide additional on-street parking spaces at suitable locations to meet the short-term parking needs of motorists while ensuring that traffic flow, road safety and the loading/unloading activities of road users will not be affected.

Law and Order Situation in Jammu and Kashmir

The number of terrorist incidents have reduced during 2020 by 59% as compared to 2019 and 32% upto June 2021 in comparison with corresponding period upto June, 2020.  Shops and business establishments, public transport, Government Offices, educational and health institutions, etc. are functioning normally in UT of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Government has adopted a policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism and has taken various measures, such as strengthening of security apparatus, strict enforcement of law against anti-national elements, intensified cordon and search operations to effectively deal with the challenges posed by the terrorist organisations. Security Forces also keep a close watch on persons who attempt to provide support to terrorists and initiate action against them.  The Government has also continuously encouraged   policies   to mainstream   the youth, including providing employment opportunities to wean them away from militancy. Adequate strength of Forces are deployed in Jammu and Kashmir for augmenting the Counter Insurgency grid, strengthening Internal Security and maintaining law & order.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Nityanand Rai in a written reply to question in the Rajya Sabha today.

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NDW/RK/PK/AY/DDD/

(Release ID: 1739934)
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