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Martin Wong

Organised bribery involving architects and contractors is emerging as anti-graft officers investigate more complaints of corruption in building maintenance, the ICAC has revealed.
There were 879 complaints against building management in the first 11 months of this year, compared with 743 during the same period last year, Andrew Chuang Siu-leung, chairman of  the Independent Commission Against Corruption's operations review committee, noted.
The figure constituted 41 per cent of total complaints against the private sector.
'Investigations by the ICAC found that in building maintenance, there were signs showing syndicated bribery involving architecture firms, building maintenance companies and contractors,' Dr Chuang said in a review of the  ICAC's work this year.
He said the  commission would pay more attention to cases on building repairs and maintenance. 'More people will need to repair their buildings as the government is set to introduce the mandatory buildinginspection scheme.'
The government has proposed that starting as early as 2009, compulsory checks should be carried out by qualified inspectors every 10 years to certify that private buildings of more than 30 years are safe.
'A big pool of money [will be involved]. There are so many opportunities for corruption,'  Dr Chuang said, adding that it was not easy for ordinary people to know the reasonable market price of  repair works.
More education would be given to the owners' corporation,  government departments and professional bodies to combat the problem.
In the first 11 months of this year, the ICAC received  3,278 complaints, an increase of 6 per cent over the same period last year.  Of these, 2,169 concerned the private sector, a rise of 15 per cent.
Laura Cha Shih May-lung,  chairwoman of the Advisory Committee on Corruption,  said that Hong Kong had been affirmed  internationally as a  level playing field,  but the ICAC faced challenges  in view of globalisation and technological advances, with increasing sophistication of corruption crimes and rising public demands on human rights and privacy.
She added that corruption crimes nowadays were not confined to a specific region and the number of cross-border cases was increasing.
'The committee supports the ICAC in launching initiatives to upgrade the professionalism of its officers and to strengthen its expert teams to brave challenges brought about by rapid technological development and the surge of new economic entities,' Mrs Cha said.



ICAC warns of organised bribery among architects, contractors over building repairs