ICAC invites visitors, not suspects, for 'cup of coffee' at its headquarters

It will be possible to rub shoulders with the city's graft-busters, and partake of their famed coffee, on the next two Sundays - without getting into trouble.

The new headquarters of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in North Point will open to the public on those days, and anyone interested in joining the team should take the chance to gain some inside information as the anti-graft watchdog plans to hire 90 people this year.

ICAC principal education and mass communication officer Vanessa So Cheung Lai-ying said the job vacancies, at investigator and assistant investigator level, had resulted from manpower losses over the year. 'We will not accept job applications on the open day, but two officers will be available to answer queries,' she said.

Visitors can also try out the commission's famed coffee - at HK$8 a cup. An invitation for 'a cup of coffee' has long been a euphemism used by investigators to invite suspects in for questioning.

Tours of the new headquarters will last about 90 minutes and cover various facilities - the identification-parade suite equipped with a one-way mirror, video interview rooms where suspects are questioned at a triangular table, and an exhibition hall three times the size of the original one in Central.

Court evidence and exhibits relating to high-profile cases such as that against police chief superintendent Peter Godber, who was jailed for corruption in the mid-1970s; the HK$6.6 billion Carrian commercial fraud in the 1980s and the public housing short-piling case in the 1990s, will be displayed.