All the insiders know it: serving as a senior official in colonial Hong Kong government is the next best thing to being the most powerful ruler in the world. Perhaps even better.
Before 1997, Hong Kong's senior civil servants enjoyed the best of both worlds - high social status and a handsome remuneration package superior to that of most presidents and prime ministers in democratic countries. Though unelected, their lack of a direct, popular mandate was more than compensated for by traditional Chinese respect for high officials.
For decades, acting as quasi-ministers, Hong Kong officials put up a stellar performance in many international organisations requiring technical expertise in specialised areas. Be it the International Monetary Fund, the World Health Organisation or the World Trade Organisation, to name a few, and whether participating as members of the UK delegation or as representatives of a non-state contracting party, Hong Kong officials had done Hong Kong proud.
Yet the golden days of Hong Kong as a bureaucrat's paradise ended with the onset of democratisation a decade or so before 1997. The rude awakening came soon after 1997, when the administration found it hard to secure a vote of thanks from the legislature for the chief executive's annual policy address, a situation undreamt of in the colonial era.
Though shorn of the power to take legislative or spending initiative, the legislature grew increasingly powerful, projecting itself as representative of the will of the people. The recent success of People Power, an extremist faction within the pan-democratic camp, in derailing the chief executive's government restructuring plan drives home the new political reality confronting our well-heeled bureaucracy.
You can blame it on the system, but other factors are responsible. The past seven years under the stewardship of veteran bureaucrat Donald Tsang Yam-kuen have been disappointing because of not only his lack of vision, but also his alleged acts of greed which bordered on corruption. We thought we had a chief who should excel because he knows the system, but Tsang drove it to the ground and left the government's reputation in tatters.
More recently, the public service has been taking one blow after another as senior officials became embroiled in scandals involving alleged criminal conduct. Recently appointed secretary for development Mak Chai-kwong had to step down following accusations that he made fake claims for tenancy allowances. And just as Hong Kong was reeling from that crisis, the community learned of former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan's alleged involvement in multiple charges of bribery and public misconduct. Mak made history as Hong Kong's most short-lived minister.