Careful inspection: Donald Tsang sees for himself how environmental hygiene staff clean an old tenement building in Tung Chau Street, Sham Shui Po.

Chief Secretary Donald Tsang said today the Government and most Hong Kong people will fully support Food & Environmental Hygiene officers in their efforts to improve public health throughout the city.

Mr Tsang saw for himself this afternoon how the department's staff cleansed an old tenement building in Tung Chau Street, Sham Shui Po.

During the visit, Mr Tsang inspected the hygienic condition of the staircase and rooftop of the building and was satisfied with the work being carried out.

He then met with the department staff at its Sham Shui Po office.

While expressing appreciation for their hard work in implementing Team Clean's initiatives, Mr Tsang reiterated that all frontline staff should exercise "zero tolerance" in law enforcement as the Team Clean campaign is a thorough exercise that should be sustained at all fronts for the years to come.

"I understand that your workload is heavy and it is not an easy job to correct the bad habit of some people who choose to dirty our environment. But we must all perform our duties in accordance with the law to protect public interest,"

In the Interim Report released by the Team Clean recently, one of its initiatives is to cleanse all the common areas of over 800 old unhygienic private buildings from May to August.

The department cleansed the common areas of 68 old tenement buildings that required immediate action last month and will cleanse another 60 buildings this month.

Meanwhile, the department is engaging more contractors to cleanse the remaining 600 old private buildings.

Contracts will be offered shortly and all the 800 buildings are expected to be cleansed by August.

The District Office of the Home Affairs Department will liaise with the owners and tenants of those buildings to help them engage cleansing agents and provide advice on a long-term solution.

Team Clean will also consider the suggestion for domestic buildings without owners' corporations to appoint housing managers.