Improving Processes for Clearing Rodent Burrows

Er Dr Lee Bee Wah asked the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources in light of the Report of the Auditor-General for FY2014/2015 on how NEA's contractor only treated rodent burrows found in the areas under NEA's purview (a) whether NEA will disregard these boundaries when carrying out its responsibilities that relate to public health issues; and (b) whether NEA has informed the other public agencies when the rodent burrows are discovered in these agencies' boundaries.

From September 2013 to January 2014, the National Environment Agency (NEA) detected close to 14,000 burrows in public areas, of which about 2,000 burrows were in areas under the purview of other agencies, excluding Town Councils. In the Auditor-General’s Office (AGO) review of NEA’s rodent control services over the same period, it found that 115 burrows detected at these areas remained untreated and 33 remained active or increased in numbers after two to six months. AGO observed that NEA's approach of not treating the burrows in areas under other public agencies may have resulted in higher overall costs and that it had not sufficiently followed up with the other public agencies to ensure that actions were taken to treat the active burrows detected.

NEA acknowledges AGO's observations. The main objective of NEA's rodent surveillance and control programme is to detect active burrows in public areas to monitor the rodent situation, with treatment comprising a small part of NEA’s rodent contract as typically less than 10% of burrows are detected in NEA-managed land. Nonetheless, NEA will step up efforts to ensure that all detected burrows are treated, including considering streamlining and taking over the treatment of burrows in areas under the purview of other agencies and those abutting NEA-managed areas.

NEA will also take steps to further strengthen its coordination with stakeholders and facilitate collaborative efforts among stakeholders in the same locale. This includes ensuring detected burrows are treated and pooling resources to tackle infestation that straddles the borders of land under different stakeholders, so as to avoid duplicative work by multiple parties. NEA is also considering other measures to ensure upstream measures to tackle rat

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infestation are put in place by the respective stakeholders.

The health and safety of the public remains our top priority. We will continue to work closely with all stakeholders to keep the rat situation under control.