Public Eye
Any old dog can learn a new trick - for money
Can you teach an old dog a new trick? In this case, can you teach an already retired lifelong bureaucrat to be a budding politician? Anything is possible in Hong Kong. All you need to do is throw money at a problem - for example call the unlucky 44th floor of a building the lucky '68th' floor and someone will pay the world's-priciest-apartment price to buy it. So there's no reason why Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen shouldn't have made retired immigration director Lai Tung-kwok an undersecretary in the Security Bureau as part of his 'political appointment' system. It doesn't matter that the system is supposed to groom new politicians. It doesn't matter that Lai is already 57. It doesn't matter that he himself said he had no ambitions beyond the 2? years that remain of Tsang's term, when Lai will be 60. It doesn't matter that Lai's entire 34-year career was with the Immigration Department, where the only required political skill is to know how to say, 'We do not comment on individual cases'. All of that doesn't matter. What matters is he'll get HK$211,560 a month - HK$30,000 more than he earned as immigration director. What matters is that he'll pocket another HK$60,000 a month on top of that for having been a loyal long-serving bureaucrat. With that kind of money any old dog can learn a new trick. Lai is destined to be a great politician.
See no evil, hear no evil on property prices
So what if our bureaucrats are skilled in saying, 'We do not comment on individual cases'. Public Eye is exceptionally skilled in commenting on individual cases. We love doing it. In fact, we're going to do it right now. We're going to comment on the case of Eva Cheng. She's the secretary for transport and housing. She says the government has no business interfering with rocketing property prices. She's right. What business is it of the government that prices have soared beyond the reach of most people? What business is it of the government that even a married couple consisting of a doctor and a lawyer can't afford to buy a decent home any more? What business is it of the government that property developers are inflating flat sizes so you end up paying more for less? What business is it of the government that developers force up prices with the pressure tactic of not releasing sales brochures until just 24 hours before new flats go on sale? Whenever our bureaucrats come under pressure to do something about all this they should simply reply: 'We do not dare comment on the individual or collective cases of our business tycoons.'
Tycoons can watch over us
Public Eye saw the Symphony of Lights for the first time last week on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. All those searchlights shooting into the sky from rooftops looked as if Hong Kong was trying desperately to locate Batman. The trouble is, Hong Kong doesn't have nearly enough tall buildings to do the job. To make sure Batman sees our signals, we must first build many more skyscrapers. Doing that is simple. We need to fit the existing searchlights with a silhouette image, just like the Bat-signal. But instead of the bat symbol, we have to project the silhouette image of our property tycoons into the sky. That way, they'll know Hong Kong needs them.
Hongkongers fail to see the light
Climate change will kill the world's coral reefs by mid-century. Scientists who issued this warning at a Copenhagen global warming conference are so horrified that they want to freeze samples for future regrowth. Regrowing the reefs can only work after the international community reverses climate change. But don't count on Hong Kong doing its part. A survey shows that 60 per cent of Hongkongers oppose having to spend a few extra dollars to help save the planet by using energy-efficient light bulbs. When the Arctic ice caps are gone, when chunks of Asia are underwater, when Hong Kong loses its winters, we'll still be squabbling over light bulbs.
