Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor reiterated her support for disgraced former development minister Mak Chai-kwong, as Leung Chun-ying's team continued to brave questions about their policies and integrity during the third and final round of town-hall sessions yesterday.
Commenting for the first time since Mak was released by the Independent Commission Against Corruption after two days of questioning over possible abuse of a civil service rent subsidy scheme, Lam commended her former colleague's devotion to serving Hongkongers.
The move, coupled with another minister setting out a timeframe for a boosted monthly allowance of HK$2,200 to the elderly in need, was seen as an effort to halt the recently installed Leung administration's plunging popularity.
Lam said during her visit to Tsuen Wan: 'The only reason for him [Mak], as a retired civil servant who had served the public for 37 years, to go back into the 'hot kitchen' - a really hot one - was to dedicate more to the people of Hong Kong. This deserves my recognition of his spirit of serving the public.'
Lam said 'Mak's dedication is undoubted' and that was why she trusted him. She refused to say whether she had put her trust in the wrong person.
She expressed the hope that the press and the public would give Mak and his wife some space to deal with the matter of the ICAC investigation.
Meanwhile, during his visit to Yuen Long, Labour and Welfare Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung pledged that the special Old Age Allowance would be implemented in the first quarter of next year at the latest.