According to Legco, Dr Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun caused Sars because she did not humiliate the central and Guangdong governments by sending a fact-finding group to Guangzhou based on unverified rumours and official public denials. Yet there is silence about how China deliberately withheld information and actively lied to Dr Chan - acts that directly led to all our Sars deaths and disabilities. The result was that Legco punished Dr Chan. I am reminded of a time when I was in a hospital outside Hong Kong. An elderly man insulted an excellent nurse to her face because of her ethnic origin and rudely demanded to be assigned one more to his personal taste. The matron on duty informed him that this nurse was giving him excellent health care, was wiping his filthy bottom, smelling his foul breath, suffering his abusive remarks and still caring for him without comment. The patient was informed that he would not get another nurse, and that he was now expected to say 'thank you' when the nurse arrived to care for him and again when she finished her duties. Because of this rebuke the man began to show the nurse the courtesy and consideration that she was due. Would that our elected leaders would follow this example. However, Legco is fixated on punishing our own health-care professionals. Not because it brings results - you have only to look at the progress made on infectious- disease control in the wake of the two other Sars inquiries - but because it is good press in an election year. Until Legco exposes the central government with as much vigour as they pick on our own overworked and under-appreciated health-care professionals, death and disease will continue to come to us from the mainland. NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED Fest 'success' So, despite all the proof that the event was poorly managed (and to the tune of $100 million), badly received, a total flop, despite the very detailed inquiry, talk about the Independent Commission Against Corruption looking into how the money was spent and a TV special that was 'dead on arrival', all that has happened is that Mike Rowse, head of InvestHK, has received a little slap on his wrist and the government has moved swiftly to brush the entire Harbour Fest fiasco under the carpet. Yes, Mike Rowse was ultimately responsible for this project and him not being in town twice - both times when important contracts were being signed - is still a little baffling, but, apart from him and high-ranking government officials who did an extremely poor job in looking into who was doing what with whom and why, there must be others right now who are laughing all the way to the bank with much of our $100 million in taxpayers' money. And I'm not talking about the acts who came out here and made more money out of Hong Kong for a lame 45-minute performance than they would have made anywhere else in the world. So, in a bit of irony, I guess, the organisers of this event and, especially, the so-called professional actually brought in especially to 'negotiate' these artists' contracts and basically gave them all a blank cheque, have certainly put Hong Kong on the map as a musical 'hub' - but for all the wrong reasons. HANS EBERT, Executive Director, EMI Music Southeast Asia Architects left out Architects and the other building professions have suffered greatly under the government's policy of squeezing consultants' fees for public projects. As a client, the government plays a very different role from that of private developers, in that it demands much more comprehensive service and should therefore be prepared to pay for the workload. Government bias towards big business has hurt architects and engineers, in that many small- and medium-sized practices are slowly being pushed out of the market. The so-called 'design and build' contracts, much favoured by government for public projects, have become a tool to subject professionals to the whims of contractors and have seriously damaged their propensity for design creativity and good service. Similarly, the so-called 'private sector participation' projects for public buildings are designed to rely heavily on financing by developers and have undermined the independence of professionals. In the case of the proposed West Kowloon cultural complex, the potential benefit of such a development will unlikely filter down to a wide cross-section of the building professions. What the government should do is to start a genuine dialogue with the professions and stop insisting that its unpopular policies are necessary for the good of all. JOHN WONG, Pokfulam Withdrawal symptoms A heartfelt thank you for 'A history of handovers' (Agenda, July 4, 2004) listing Britain's role upon her withdrawal from Iraq, Hong Kong, Rhodesia, Uganda, Israel, India, Ireland and the USA. A pity the death tolls related to these withdrawals were not listed as well. Can it be so easily taken for granted that Hong Kong should be the only listed territory with a death toll of zero? Apparently, 530,000 marchers on July 1 have forgotten to count their blessings. Some are even so much blinded by their bias against the People's Republic of China and all things communist, that they even suggest there is nothing to celebrate on July 1. NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED Donate mansion Wouldn't it be nice if the developers of Cyberport bought the Stubbs Road mansion and donated it to the people of Hong Kong? This would go some way towards assuaging the bitterness many feel about the manner in which such a large tract of valuable Pokfulam land was awarded one developer (without tender). It would also give us a homegrown cultural icon to market to tourists instead of an imported one like Disneyland. WENDY MC TAVISH, Central A little more incentive According to the breakdown of Hong Kong advanced-level exam results in use of English for all students, less than 1 per cent (0.8) of the candidates received an A grade this year. About 3.3 per cent received a B, and 11.6 per cent received Cs. Then the figure rises astronomically to 32.9 per cent getting Ds, 34.9 per cent getting Es and the remaining 20.6 per cent failing (14 per cent getting Fs and 6.6 per cent getting Us, for 'unclassified'). Why are so few students allowed to earn As? Why is there such a disproportionate amount of students receiving Ds and Es, almost 68 per cent, compared to As, Bs and Cs? Could the Examination and Assessments Authority, Education and Manpower Bureau or any of the parties responsible for this distribution please explain? After all, when students have more hope, they will be more motivated. ADAM REKRUT, Kowloon Get with the programme For 100 years London appointed the governor of Hong Kong and he in turn appointed his ministers. There were no demonstrations or objections during that time. After 1997, various groups and people started to object when Beijing appointed the chief executive. What does it matter who is the chief executive as long as he does a good job? I would warn the people of Hong Kong that their actions are only tolerated because of the Taiwan question. Beijing could open up Shanghai within five years, and Hong Kong would wither and die, and return to the barren rock it once was. We are now a part of China and we should accept it. JOHN FLEMING, Cheung Chau
