The Director of Audit on Wednesday urged the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) to beef up its efforts to tackle unlicensed food premises.

In its report, the government auditor revealed that the FEHD's success rate in arrest operations against unlicensed food business activities dropped from 50 percent in 2018 to 35 percent in 2022.

In 2022, six of the city's 19 district environmental hygiene offices failed to make a single arrest in their operations, the auditor said.

The Audit Commission urged the FEHD to review the way these operations are being carried out.

The auditor also said according to FEHD figures, the number of unlicensed food premises in the city rose from 498 in 2018 to 1,178 in 2022, with most of them in the process of applying for a licence.

But there were delays by the FEHD in referring licence applications to other government departments for follow-up action, such as the Fire Services Department over fire safety and ventilation requirements.

The FEHD is mandated to make a referral within three days, but the auditor said it failed to meet the deadline in 35 out of 50 applications between 2021 and 2022. On average, there was a delay of two working days.

The auditor called on the department to monitor the processing time for licence and permit applications, and streamline the procedures by reducing unnecessary referrals.