Local construction companies find it pays to be noisy and break environmental

GAMMON, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, Paul Y-ITC, Heng Tat, Chun Wo, Chevalier (Construction), Shui On, Chevalier Construction (HK). This may sound like a roll call of Hong Kong's top builders. In fact, it is a list of Hong Kong's top polluters.

Over the past two years, these companies racked up 167 offences between them, paying $6.8 million in fines, according to the Environmental Protection Department (EPD). In the construction world, where projects cost hundreds of million of dollars or more and bonuses are paid for finishing early, that is peanuts. And that, say critics and even those in the trade, is one of the reasons companies continue to break the law.

Most construction offences relate to noise pollution - 131 in the case of these companies. Unlike the laws for water and air pollution, no single person need be held responsible for noise violations. The company is charged and the company, as a whole, bears responsibility.

The EPD wants this to change. It went to legislators in March and will go back to them in October asking that the Noise Control Ordinance be amended so company directors or managers are held personally liable for their companies' noise violations.

The department has a persuasive argument: less than three per cent of repeat offences in 1997 and 1998 were committed by business owners who were personally accountable to the courts.

But the industry is opposed to the idea.

'It seems they are saying contractors care more about the project than the fine so let's put them in jail. What good does that do to society?' said Patrick Chan Wing-tung, secretary general of the Hong Kong Construction Association.