It is sink or swim time for the civil service. The retirements of a number of senior locals together with the enforced departures of many senior expatriates have led to the rapid promotions of scores of young, aspiring administrative officers.
While most are ready for the top jobs or will shortly grow into them, the exercise has left a major void in the ranks immediately below.
How is that gap going to be filled? This must be the question troubling Civil Service Branch officials in the months building up to the sovereignty change next summer. Apparently, an obvious solution is to promote those locals even further down the ladder more rapidly.
But this raises the question of how many more second-tier or third-tier officials are ready to take up the heavier responsibility.
Many of them are not sufficiently capable or competent to assume a more senior role.
Before Secretary for the Civil Service Lam Woon-kwong and his colleagues in the branch can even address the dilemma, they must resolve other problems brought by the succession gap.