IT is no slight on the personal integrity of either John Chan Cho-chak or Yeung Kai-yin, the two most senior officials to leave the civil service in recent months, to suggest the machinery in place to prevent them using valuable inside information to the benefit of their new employers is inadequate.
As Mr Chan noted yesterday, his new position as managing director of Kowloon Motor Bus will require a great deal of integrity to avoid such abuses.
As an officer taking early retirement, Mr Chan was required to submit an application to the Advisory Committee on Post-retirement Employment and was asked to wait six months before joining Kowloon Motor Bus. That is the longest ''sanitisation period'' the committee has imposed in its five years of operation.
Mr Yeung, by contrast, has resigned, not retired. Permission for an officer in his position to take up outside employment is at the discretion of the Secretary for the Civil Service. He will be free to join Sino Land from December 1.
Hong Kong follows the British model. But while British Government is neither open, nor totally free of corruption and influence-peddling, the civil service culture there is traditionally suspicious of businessmen and industrialists - at least of those who did not go to the right schools. No such cultural check - however superficial or hypocritical - operates in Hong Kong.
Moreover the growth of corruption across the border and its knock-on effects in Hong Kong mean extra vigilance is required. The cooling off-period Mr Chan has undergone is not long enough to make his inside knowledge useless. But it is the minimum that should be required of anyone who leaves from a position of such seniority.
