Secretary for Home Affairs Lau Kong-wah introduced details of the Property Management Sector Support Scheme under the Anti-epidemic Fund while meeting property management, cleansing and security sector representatives yesterday.

He said different sectors have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak to various extents and that financial backing is justified.

“Urgent financial support to the frontline property management workers, in particular cleansing and security workers, is warranted so as to better cope with the present public health challenge.

“Therefore, we have proposed to the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council to launch the Property Management Sector Support Scheme to facilitate the anti-epidemic work.”

He explained that the scheme will provide property management workers in private residential and composite buildings with financial support to strengthen their personal protection and environmental hygiene capacity.

It also seeks to reduce the financial burden on residents by alleviating additional costs arising from heightened cleansing efforts and procurement of cleansing products and protective kits.

For each eligible building block, every cleansing or security worker will be given a monthly anti-epidemic hardship allowance of $1,000 for four months, subject to a headcount cap of six.

The property management company or owners or residents organisations will be given an anti-epidemic cleansing subsidy lump sum of $2,000 per building block.

It is expected to benefit over 200,000 frontline property management workers serving around 33,000 building blocks.

The total funding required will be about $1 billion. Upon approval, the scheme should be open for application in March 2020.