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Jimmy Cheung

Executive Councillor and DAB legislator Tam Yiu-chung has been urged by a watchdog to give up one of his roles due to 'conflict of interest'.

 The Catholic Monitoring Group on Legco members' performance yesterday said Mr Tam's Exco role had prevented him from monitoring the Government in Legco.

 The non-official watchdog's statistics showed Mr Tam had nine times abstained or voted against other members of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong and Federation of Trade Unions.

 Group spokesman Hui Wai-bun said the directly elected lawmaker should quit one of his jobs.

 'We only have 20 directly elected seats. When some members chose to defend the Government instead of representing the voice of the public, not only are they going back against their campaign platforms, the Legco monitoring function as a whole will become futile,' he said.

 Mr Tam last night admitted he could not vote freely due to the collective responsibility imposed by Exco.

 However, he rejected claims of a conflict, saying voters were fully aware of his Exco membership when they cast ballots.

 The monitoring group also attacked the bicameral voting systems for scuttling proposals related to livelihood.

 Up to 11 of the 19 motions were defeated because they failed to fulfil the Basic Law requirement of securing more than half of the votes in two divisions, one by the election committee and the geographical constituencies and one by functional constituencies.

 Banker David Li Kwok-po was criticised for disappearing when it came to a vote on 30 occasions.

 Rural leader Lau Wong-fat and sports representative Timothy Fok Tsun-ting each had 14 such records, while legal representative Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee had 13.

 Mr Fok was also attacked for speaking only once during Wednesday sittings during the first six months of the new term which started in July last year.



Quit call as Exco legislator votes against party colleagues