SCMP, September 11, 2002:
With just a month to complete its investigation, the Panel of Inquiry on the Penny Stocks incident has done well to produce a thorough 181-page report. Robert Kotewall and Gordon Kwong Chi-keung have left no stones unturned in tracing and analysing what happened before and after the penny stocks crash on July 26, which had followed the release of a consultation paper on the possible delisting of such stocks by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) the day before.
The panel's conclusion: the crash was the result of an unfortunate combination of factors. While there were 'some instances of errors of judgment and some systemic wrinkles here and there', none of the shortcomings was major, and no heads need to roll.
Given the current culture of blame that pervades the community, the panel's acerbic remarks will not go down well with those inclined to regard the exercise, however thorough and comprehensive, as a whitewash.
The Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Frederick Ma Si-hang, has been the biggest target of public criticism, because of his initial remarks that he should not be held responsible. Apparently, the panel found, he was genuinely unaware of the proposals because of lapses by his administrative assistant and his failure to read the mountains of documents in his in-tray.
Does the revelation mean Mr Ma holds no responsibility? Certainly not. Just ask those company executives who have had to apologise for errors committed by underlings whose names they probably do not know. Yet that is not to say Mr Ma should step down for his blunder. Pulled from the private sector to join the highest echelon of government just two months ago, Mr Ma was, and still is, a political novice whose major error was perhaps to have allowed his instincts to drive him to defend himself.