Company silence greets legislators on airport visit
A visit by legislators to the airport cargo centre yesterday failed to find answers to its problems after HACTL officials said they were under orders not to discuss them.
'Because of the commission of inquiry by Mr Justice Woo Kwok-hing, HACTL's [Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited] opening statement was that there were a lot of things they could not tell us,' said Economic Services Panel chairman James Tien Pei-chun.
'Because of the inquiry, we could not ask about the cause of the problems.
'That's what Mr Justice Woo told them not to tell us or the media.' The legislators could only take a brief look at the operation of SuperTerminal 1. Sin Chung-kai, of the Democratic Party, said legal advisers were present to advise HACTL's managing director Anthony Charter what he could and could not say. The 11 panel members had accepted an invitation from HACTL on Tuesday before Mr Justice Woo made his remarks.
'We are dissatisfied with the visit but we respect their reasons for not answering us because of Mr Justice Woo's comments, and we respect the comments,' said Mr Tien.
On Wednesday, Mr Justice Woo warned against further comments on the fiasco, especially on who should be held responsible, saying they might affect the inquiry's independent judgment.
Mr Sin said the briefing was still of some use in giving members a better idea of the flow of operations.
'At least we could have some visual impressions of the operation which will enable us to ask more critical questions in our own inquiry,' Mr Sin said.
