Is it too much to expect civil servants to serve the public interest?
Stephen Vines says trust in government is being gradually eroded
In some rather perverse way, we should be grateful to Anita Lam Ka-fun, an assistant director in the Lands Department, for bringing into sharp focus the issue of integrity in the civil service.
As others have noted, this is not merely a matter of civil servants obeying the law but of whether they conduct themselves in a manner likely to enhance or detract from public trust in government.
Lam bought a large plot of land in Yuen Long that greatly increased in value after a decision was made to create a new town on an adjacent site.
As a senior member of the department, Lam was likely to have been aware of the internal discussions over this project and its implications.
She is also a member of the Town Planning Board's Rural and New Town Planning Committee, which generously handled her family's application to build four houses on the land. She absented herself from that discussion, having declared an interest.
Once all this came to light, the government moved with great haste not only to give Lam a clean bill of health but to reiterate that "it is government policy to protect the right of civil servants to make investments while maintaining their impartiality and accountability to the public".