City Beat | Why Beijing's liaison office in Hong Kong needs to be more transparent

The central government's liaison office is very familiar to Hongkongers. So guess how an ordinary citizen with no political affiliation or public duties reacts when receiving a call from someone purporting to be an official from that office? No doubt they would be surprised.

Then there is the question of whether the recipient of the call takes it seriously and follows the caller's instructions - as happened in some of the spate of phone scam cases in recent weeks.

As Beijing's top representative body in the city, it is little wonder people take its words seriously as its views are usually interpreted as being Beijing's views.

Over the past 18 years, it has not been unusual to hear comments from its senior officials - mostly comments on political issues given after being ambushed or chased down by reporters. Rarely has a liaison official given a formal interview to local media.

It was thus something of a surprise last week when one senior official showed up on a radio programme to talk about the hot topic of the phone scams that have cost Hongkongers millions.

Speaking on a DBC radio phone-in, Wu Guozhen, deputy head of police affairs at the office, explained how scam calls were made, detailed the involvement of transnational syndicates and told of how his office was flooded with inquiries, as Hongkongers lost some HK$56.7 million in two weeks.