Public accountability remains an alien concept for Hong Kong officials
Stephen Vines sees a lack of responsibility in growing list of scandals
Lovers of irony are becoming increasingly dismayed by the way that public accountability in Hong Kong is giving irony a bad name.
These cynics rubbed their hands with glee when the government launched its accountability scheme for top officials back in 2002. But the joke rapidly turned sour as it became apparent that officials had an Orwellian vision of what accountability was supposed to mean; in other words, they thought it was enough to say they would take responsibility while they did everything in their power to avoid it.
We have now learned that this lack of responsibility is literally life-threatening, as seen in the aftermath of the 2012 Lamma ferry tragedy in which 39 people died. Instead of learning lessons and ensuring that responsibility was properly apportioned, senior officials have made every effort to pass the buck while attempting to keep the findings of an inquiry under wraps.
Meanwhile, when it comes to almost shameless carelessness with public money, officials are also quick to rush for the exit rather than face up to the consequences.
The recently revealed farce of the millions squandered in the Mega Events Fund is a mere shadow of the billions of dollars seeping out of the MTR Corporation's express rail link to Guangzhou. Here again, blame is being shirked at the most senior levels of the administration and the largely publicly owned MTR Corp.
Worse still, the MTR has decided to place the investigation of its problems into the hands of its own non-executive directors, the very people who were found sleeping on the job when they were supposed to perform an independent supervisory role as company directors.
Meanwhile, the government seems unable to organise an even vaguely credible panel of experts to investigate the miscommunication between itself and the MTR. The first attempt saw the appointment of Lee Chack-fan to head the committee despite an easy-to-spot conflict of interest stemming from Lee's directorship of one of the biggest companies working on the project.