When it's more than just money

Legislators and top government officials found some common ground during a session of the Legislative Council's security panel on Wednesday. It concerned a survey by the London-based Control Risks Group, which showed that 76 per cent of 50 Hong Kong companies believed they had lost business in the past five years because a competitor had paid a bribe. Lawmakers and officials agreed that the findings must be flawed, or at least misleading.

Raymond Wong Hung-chiu, commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, quoted statistics showing that corruption in Hong Kong was actually declining. One legislator suggested that the government should conduct its own surveys, to be used to counter bad publicity generated by studies such as that done by Control Risks.

Undoubtedly, Hong Kong is not as bad as suggested by the survey, which reflected practices on the mainland as well as elsewhere in the region. However, this does not mean there are no problems. Recently, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen welcomed an international audience to Hong Kong to discuss corporate integrity and governance.

'The rules for doing businesses here are unambiguous and transparent,' Mr Tsang said. 'And no one is above the law.'

His audience may not have been aware of it, but what the chief executive said was not totally true. For one thing, he is above the law: the Prevention Against Bribery Ordinance does not apply to the chief executive. To make matters worse, the ICAC commissioner, who is meant to be independent, is appointed by the chief executive and is accountable to him.

To his credit, Mr Tsang said in his first policy address a year ago that he wanted to introduce legislation 'as soon as possible' to make chief executives accountable to the anti-corruption ordinance. But there is still no such legislation.