Politics

A new accountability system for senior civil servants is targeted at strengthening the fitness of government departments and raising public trust in authorities, Hong Kong’s leader has said.Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu told a radio programme on Saturday the measure would push department heads to consistently look for areas for improvement, likening the practice to regular exercise.In his annual policy blueprint on Wednesday, Lee introduced the “Heads of Department Accountability System”, which would penalise underperforming senior civil servants and address internal deficiencies.“My second goal for pushing this measure is that I want to push the heads of departments to strengthen their entire department on a day-to-day basis,” he said.“It is like having one person who regularly exercis...

The head of Hong Kong’s logistics department, embroiled in a water procurement scandal, has started his pre-retirement leave.According to the latest government gazette, Carlson Chan Ka-shun ceased to be the director of the Government Logistics Department on Friday as he began his pre-retirement leave.His former deputy, Avia Lai Wong Shuk-han, was appointed as the acting director of the department.Asked whether the leave was part of disciplinary action taken against the official, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu, who oversees the department, said Chan’s retirement was simply a “normal arrangement”.He added the government was addressing the scandal from three aspects: the department’s remedial efforts, the Audit Commission’s investigation and a task ...

Hong Kong commerce minister Algernon Yau Ying-wah has said his views have been influenced by his revolutionary grandfather, a man closely intertwined with cross-strait relations at an important time in Chinese history.In a wide-ranging interview with the Post on Friday, the secretary for commerce and economic development shared details about his family’s role in politics over the decades.A major influence on Yau was his grandfather, Qiu Fengjia, a Chinese politician, educator and poet born in Taiwan in 1864, who was known for supporting the nation during the First Sino-Japanese War in the 1890s.Yau, who was born in Hong Kong in 1958, said he had followed in the footsteps of his patriotic family and hoped Taiwan would one day be reunited with mainland China.“He loved Taiwan,” the minister s...

It is quite unimaginable that Hong Kong continues to struggle with basic necessities such as water. However, that is the case, at least when it comes to the government.Ten years ago, opposition lawmaker Helena Wong Pik-wan found excessive levels of lead in drinking water that was later discovered to have affected 11 public housing estates, involving 29,000 households. That led to an independent, judge-led inquiry in 2016. The investigation yielded 17 recommendations, including for the water authority to decide on and uphold a robust licensing regime for those responsible for plumbing installations.Most damning of all was that the Water Supplies Department was slammed for having an inadequate understanding of the World Health Organization guidelines that it had adopted in 1994. For more tha...

Hong Kong’s treasury chief has dismissed calls to set up a separate commission of inquiry to investigate officials’ roles in a bottled water procurement scandal, arguing that the government’s auditors will be able to identify lapses in a “professional and independent” manner.Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu, the head of a newly formed task force that is reviewing the case, on Sunday defended the adequacy of having the Audit Commission conduct its investigation, and also recommended that authorities explore the use of technology to improve scrutiny of public tenders.Hui, who heads the bureau that oversees the Government Logistics Department, earlier said the task force would submit a report in three months’ time. But he has faced mounting pressure o...

Hong Kong’s leader has expressed deep disappointment over the Government Logistics Department’s failure to detect fraudulent documents before awarding a HK$52.9 million (US$6.78 million) contract to a bottled water supplier, urging authorities to plug loopholes in the procurement process as soon as possible.Commenting on the water supply scandal for the first time, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu also said the treasury minister’s response to the incident had been timely and appropriate.Lee vowed to resort to the civil service disciplinary rules if any negligence related to the case was uncovered.The city leader was responding to a growing government water procurement saga in which a three-year HK$52.9 million contract was awarded to Xin Ding Xin Trade, a company that is now suspected of u...

Hong Kong’s leader visited eastern Kowloon’s grassroots residents on Saturday morning as part of a consultation exercise ahead of his policy address, which he announced will be on September 17.Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Saturday began his visit to two families living in a “light public housing” project on Ngau Tau Kok’s Choi Hing Road before heading to the Lower Ngau Tau Kok Estate.“The purpose of launching light public housing is to allow those in need to move in in a quicker manner …Today, my feeling is that what the project provides is not only the space, but also room for the tenants’ children to grow healthy physically and mentally,” he said after wrapping up the morning visit.Light public housing is a type of temporary home designed by the government for families who have be...

Hong Kong authorities are seeking to remove at least five opposition groups from the official societies register, including the now-defunct Scholarism founded by jailed activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung and political party People Power.The groups have three months to submit proof that they are still functioning or else their operations will be banned.According to notices published by the Government Gazette on Friday, 285 community groups and organisations are facing the risk of deregistration.The five former pan-democrat groups include Scholarism and People Power. Lesser-known groups include Kowloon City Matters, Tin Shui Wai New Force, and Sha Tin Community Network.The notice, signed by an assistant societies officer, read: “I have reason to believe that the undermentioned societies have ceas...

A vague public apology and blaming a procedural “flaw” have failed to quell public discontent over the government’s water procurement scandal, political analysts have said, urging Hong Kong’s leader to accelerate developing a civil servant accountability system.Analysts made the call on Friday as the government told the Post that the central tender board, chaired by a permanent secretary of the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau, had given the final approval to the bottled water contracts involved. The confirmation meant more senior officials were involved in the decision-making process.The growing debate on the saga followed an apology by the Government Logistics Department director Carlson Chan Ka-shun on Thursday.The director apologised “on behalf of his department” for awarding...

Who before this month had ever heard of Erika McEntarfer, the career statistician who toiled quietly and uncontroversially at the heart of the US data-gathering machine, for 20 years at the Census Bureau and more recently as head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics?Who except US President Donald Trump could have sought to create a firestorm out of dull labour statistics, accusing McEntarfer of rigging jobs numbers to contradict his narrative of a robustly recovering economy, and making an improbable martyr-heroine out of a woman who would not in a dozen lifetimes have sought or attracted public attention?The answer is that Trump is far from alone in his paranoia over statistics. Many before him have done the same thing – flailing out at messengers who report inconvenient numbers at inconven...