Opportunity knocks, again
There is something baffling about the appointment of former civil servant Lam Woon-kwong as Hong Kong's next Equal Opportunities Commission chairman. Lam abruptly quit as director of the Chief Executive's Office in 2005 after a magazine exposed his extra-marital affair. If our moral standards are set so high that we cannot tolerate philandering public officials, why has the government door again opened for Lam? By which principle does a top official quit over a sex scandal only to return to the fold five years later?
Maybe the passage of time can turn logic on its head. Time not only heals, it also dulls memories. But those who choose not to forget will read a different logic into the door opening again for Lam. It reopened because the government keeps a revolving door for one of its own.
Examples of senior bureaucrats being handed plum post-retirement jobs with high pay and perks are too many to list here. Lam himself landed the job of chief organiser for the Hong Kong equestrian events of the Beijing Olympics barely a year after his government exit. What is surprising, though, is that our decision makers dared to do it again, so soon and in such blatant fashion, given the vexed history of the Equal Opportunities Commission and the current political atmosphere. Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen spoke just two days ago of the deepening divide between the government and the people.
Lam will replace Raymond Tang Yee-bong, who ended his term with his name tarnished over spending irregularities highlighted by the audit director. Tang had replaced retired judge Michael Wong Kin-chow, who served just three months before succumbing to a series of scandals connected to his firing of a senior aide. Wong had replaced Anna Wu Hung-yuk whose crusading style was said to have so upset the government that she got a shorter-than-normal extension.
Add to this sorry history the resignation 2? years ago of a senior staffer whose husband, former RTHK director Chu Pui-hing, was also caught with another woman. Such was the moral outrage that, not only did Chu quit as broadcasting chief, his wife felt obliged to give up her job at the commission. The revolving door never opened for Chu. The logic could be that he wasn't much of a team player, having annoyed the old boys' club by advocating greater editorial independence for RTHK.
As the name suggests, the Equal Opportunities Commission's duty is to protect the human rights principles of equality and fairness. Society associates the commission's work with advancing a moral cause. Isn't it therefore puzzling that the government would choose a man who was forced out of a top job by society's moral standards to be the chief cheerleader of a moral cause?
Whether Lam has what it takes to run the commission is not the issue here. As a former top civil servant with more than 30 years' experience, there is no question he knows how to run a large organisation. By most accounts, he is also a nice guy. I certainly found him to be so on the few occasions we talked when he was still in government. I knew about his affair well before it was publicised. The woman involved is a friend and former colleague of mine.