Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam defends MTR chief Frederick Ma after his comments on train derailment draw fire

Chief executive says transport company chairman did not mean it when he told reporters it was ‘meaningless’ to give them more details on incident

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Chief Executive Carrie Lam meets the press before her Exco meeting. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 12:23pm, 29 May 2018Updated: 11:19pm, 29 May 2018

Hong Kong’s leader defended her former peer Frederick Ma Si-hang on Tuesday, saying the MTR Corporation chairman had not meant his controversial remarks about not giving the media more details on a derailment during tests for the new express rail link to mainland China.

Speaking before the weekly Executive Council meeting on Tuesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said Ma could have been “anxious” when he made the comments as he wanted the company to perform well during the trials.

“If chairman Ma had given people an impression that there was no need to monitor the MTR Corp, or for the MTR Corp to provide information … maybe, like what he said, it was a hot day, I think he did not mean that,” Lam said.

Ma drew fire from lawmakers after he told reporters last Saturday that it would be “meaningless” to give them more details on the derailment incident in April, as they were not technicians.

MTR chairman Frederick Ma said giving reporters more information would just lead to more questions. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

He also said giving reporters more information would just lead to further questions, adding that some information was internal and could not be released to the public.

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