Government contract scandal becomes history

King Henry II of England is famously reported to have said: 'Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?' Four of his loyal supporters, thinking they had caught their master's underlying meaning, then went out and assassinated the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. Time passed and, as so often happens, the verdicts were reversed. Becket was made a saint, the king had to do penance, and the four underlings were excommunicated by the church. Such is the reward of misplaced loyalty.

It would not be too great a stretch to see a similar chain of events in the award to iProA of a half-share of a contract for which a rival tenderer had submitted a superior bid.

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah, by his own admission, made some remarks on a previous occasion along the lines that the company, closely affiliated with the pro-government Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, was a reliable one and could be counted on to deliver a good service. So, when his loyal minions discovered that the board appointed to evaluate the tenders for the Internet Learning Support Programme had concluded that the contract should be awarded to the Hong Kong Council of Social Service because its bid was better, the disappointment among them would have been palpable.

Not surprisingly, some of them apparently hinted that a politically desirable outcome would be for iProA to be involved in the contract. (The attraction, reportedly, was the opportunity for the DAB to turn up at citizens' front doors offering a tangible benefit and thereby securing a political plus.) And so it came to pass.

The whistle on this rather clumsy fix was blown by a somewhat unlikely hero, Jeremy Godfrey, an information technology geek and son of a High Court judge. But one with a sense of humour and, most importantly, a patently honest man.

Political pressure had been brought to bear on the tendering process, he said. He resigned before the end of his contract to protest.

So far the script almost writes itself: offhand remark by King John, misguided enthusiasm by courtiers, termination of principled churchman. But, in between the case coming into the public arena and the hearings in the Legislative Council to discuss it, there was a rather unpleasant episode where certain parties sought to undermine Godfrey's credibility with a smear campaign.