SOCIETY relies upon good government, and good government relies upon a civil service which is skilled, dedicated, impartial and incorruptible. We are fortunate to have such a civil service in Hong Kong, particularly at a time of imminent constitutional change, when continuity of administration must be maintained despite a shift in sovereign power.
Hong Kong is a small place, and the civil service is a big, powerful organisation. Its members justly enjoy great prestige throughout the community.
Obviously, no serving civil servant should engage externally in business. That is generally agreed. But I find it difficult to accept that members of the civil service should, after retiring at a relatively young age, or after resigning, be able to take their prestige and authority and put it at the service of a commercial organisation.
I am not suggesting that conflicts of interest do occur. Merely that care should be taken to avoid situations in which they might occur. While it is in the public interest that people with experience in public administration should be able to move into business, and that such movement should not be frustrated by unjustified public concern over a particular appointment, it is also very important that when a civil servant accepts a particular outside appointment that there be no cause for any suspicion of impropriety.
In recent months we have seen top civil servants, such as the former Secretary for Education and Manpower, John Chan Cho-chak, and the former Secretary for the Treasury and subsequently for Transport, Yeung Kai-yin, leaving the service for the private sector. Some code on the acceptance of outside appointments by civil servants is needed, and is needed very quickly.
The aim of the code should be to avoid any suspicion that the advice and decisions of a serving officer might have been influenced by the hope or expectation of future employment with a company or organisation; and to avoid the risk that a company or organisation might gain an unfair advantage over its competitors by employing someone who, in the course of official duties, has had access to information which those competitors might legitimately regard as their own trade secrets, or to information relatingto proposed developments in government policy which may affect that company or organisation, or its competitors.