Civil servants in charge of public hygiene have urged the government not to outsource pest-control services, saying it would lower service quality.
The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department Staff Rights Union has collected 406 signatures from members opposed to the department's decision to freeze the number of rank-two workmen in the pest-control team.
The union learned of the freeze last month when a department notice said the pest-control team, which presently has 442 workmen, would be cut to only 264 after retirements and the restructuring of the department. They are outnumbered by the 1,512 contract staff doing similar work.
The union said it was worried that more pest-control services would be outsourced to firms whose staff were generally less well trained than civil servants.
'Past experience has told us too much outsourcing will affect service quality. Total outsourcing of pest services is a very dangerous thing to do,' union chairwoman Li Mei-siu said.
She said one contractor used cheaper, banned pesticides to kill mosquitoes in 2006. Another contractor used poor-quality pesticides that failed to kill rodents.