Lincoln Leong: the new man in the MTR driver's seat
Lincoln Leong is relishing the many challenges he faces as chief executive of the railway operator
In his first face-to-face media interview since taking office last month, MTR Corporation chief executive Lincoln Leong Kwok-kuen is fond of using the word "challenge".
There are challenges, he says, in completing the cross-border high-speed railway project - already the costliest line on earth by distance - which legislator Michael Tien Puk-sun estimated on Monday would cost 30 per cent more than first budgeted. The price tag will be about HK$85 billion by the time it is ready in 2017.
There are challenges, he stresses, in carving out the tunnel and the iconic rooftop of the railway's terminus in West Kowloon, never mind the troubling questions of who and how to settle the ballooning bill.
There are challenges, he goes on, in easing the construction congestion of four continuing projects including the high-speed line in the face of a 20 per cent shortfall in workers, 2,000 posts, needed for the projects.
Even as he recites his challenges, the 54-year-old MTR veteran puts up a brave front. "But I am happy as a CEO," he says in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post. "I have many good colleagues, many of whom have worked here for more than 10 years."
Leong took up the post formally last month but he has been in the driver's seat since becoming acting CEO last August. That was when the career of his predecessor, Jay Walder, screeched to an unexpected halt in the middle of his two-year term.