Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor yesterday blamed 'internal communications problems' for the administration's failure to publicise Education Secretary Eddie Ng Hak-kim's trip to Beijing this week.
The administration has been accused of trying to keep secret the meeting with Ministry of Education officials, which comes amid a flare up in tensions over the government's plan to implement a national education curriculum.
But Lam denied any subterfuge. She said someone in the administration was confused by two policies about publicising out-of-town trips.
One is the requirement that top officials appoint someone to act in their stead when they leave Hong Kong for more than 24 hours. The other is the government's long-standing practice of publicising any out-of-town trips.
Apparently, someone - Lam did not say whom - thought no advance notice was necessary because Ng was to be gone for less than a day.
'It was due to internal communications problems as far as I understand,' she said. 'Somehow in this particular incident the two sets of arrangements have been mixed up.'
Lam said the government would be sure to publicise any out-of-town trips by top officials in future.
