Governance standards struggle to get out of the basement
These days we seem to get a new scandal or irregularity every other week involving government officials and civil servants. It is dispiriting to say the least. For many years the people of Hong Kong thought its government was reasonably clean and committed to working in Hong Kong's interests.
These days we seem to get a new scandal or irregularity every other week involving government officials and civil servants. It is dispiriting to say the least.
For many years the people of Hong Kong thought its government was reasonably clean and committed to working in Hong Kong's interests. However, the shenanigans surrounding last year's chief executive election opened a can of worms when it became apparent that a number of senior officials were committed to serving their own interests rather than those they were being paid to serve.
It was reportedly "common practice" for civil servants to swap flats so as to gain government rental allowances; the former ICAC chief spent vast amounts of money entertaining mainland officials, undermining the independence of the organisation and the so-called one country, two systems. Now we hear the head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption has had to "ban" alcohol within the organisation and will auction off its stocks.
The Public Records Office is a shambles and government records are not being properly maintained, experts in the Environmental Protection Department have been downgraded and one suspects the same process has occurred in other departments. We would like to think that the rule of law has so far remained unscathed.
Yet a few eyebrows were raised in legal circles over the charging of Henry Tang Ying-yen's wife, Lisa Kuo Yu-chin, in connection with the illegal basement saga. She was charged with breaches of the buildings ordinance which carry fines of up to HK$1 million and a few years in jail. She could have faced the more serious charge of conspiracy to defraud, which carries a jail sentence of up to 14 years.
Are governance standards slipping or have they always been this way but better concealed? The government is losing people's trust, confidence and respect, but alarmingly shows no sign of retrieving them any time soon.
We return to the vexed issue of illegal parking. Our account of the RTHK episode on illegal parking struck a chord with a reader. In kindness we should say the programme was prescriptive rather than descriptive to the point of farce, in that it showed a vehicle being towed away for parking illegally.
Our reader was prompted to send us the photograph on this page. It shows a government car illegally parked in Ice House Street last week at lunchtime with the driver waiting inside with the engine running. Given the number of court cases and investigations involving civil servants and former government officials it is perhaps too much too expect them to set an example.
People have mocked our interest in illegal parking, but if the laws can't be enforced at this rather basic level it sets a certain tone. Those who happily break these laws are less concerned about breaking them elsewhere and those who are supposed to be enforcing them are selective about which laws they choose to enforce.
Following our recent account of a reader who was overcharged by Cable TV, we have received another complaint. Our reader writes that he had a contract with Cable TV for his mother, and when she passed away a year ago he phoned the company to cancel the service and agreed to pay the remaining months of the contract. However, Cable TV continued to bill him via autopay, something he only realised a year later. When he called to find out why he was told the contract was automatically rolled over as he failed to advise them he wanted to cancel it.
As with the previous case, when our reader tried to cancel the contract he was told he needed to give a month's notice and pay a further month's fee. But there was an interesting twist. Our reader says that while discussing the matter with the company's customer service representative, she suddenly said: "I am very hungry right now, so I am going to get some food. Please call back later." Service appears to have improved since raised the issue with the company on Monday. We hear that Cable TV said yesterday it would refund the charges it had made over the past 15 months.
