Heung Yee Kuk chief disclosures probed
A Legislative Council inquiry is under way into lawmaker and Executive Council member Lau Wong-fat's failure to disclose property interests.
It centres on public complaints about the New Territories power broker's failure to declare property transactions and land ownership, which came to light last September.
According to lawmaker Paul Chan Mo-po, a member of Legco's Committee on Members' Interests, who is chairing the investigation, a draft of the report on the investigation was complete and a final version would be handed over in the next few weeks.
'There will be a report submitted at the end of this month or early next month,' Chan said.
The investigations will focus exclusively on Legco declarations by Lau - who is chairman of the powerful Heung Yee Kuk - as the committee has no power to investigate his Exco responsibilities, according to another person familiar with the probe.
While he declined to comment about the specifics of the inquiry, Chan noted that Legco had received complaints about the registrations of interests beyond Lau's case.
'Lately we have received complaints about registrations of interest, as well as complaints about members,' Chan said. 'I think perhaps we should take a look to see if we need to review it.'
Lau Wong-fat was not available for immediate comment.
He came under scrutiny last September when media reports revealed numerous properties that Lau had not disclosed in his register of interests, which he is required to file to both Exco and Legco. Lau failed to declare property deals in adherence with an Exco rule requiring members to report changes in property interests within 14 days and later acknowledged he had failed to disclose hundreds of properties.
The New Territories kingpin was also criticised for three property transactions that represented a conflict of interest with his responsibilities as an Exco member.
Companies owned in part by Lau sold three houses through 'confirmor transactions', in which properties are flipped before the original sale is complete, last March and July.
The sales netted a profit of HK$800,000 and came soon after the government announced measures to cool the overheating property market in February, including a ban on these types of transactions.
Lau denied any conflict of interest and revised his Exco property ownership records three times, revealing by mid-November an ownership portfolio totalling 724 units of land and property.
In his most recent disclosure to Exco in January, the number of properties decreased to 491.
But Lau, who represents the Heung Yee Kuk functional constituency, has not updated his Legco land and property disclosures since 2008.
In October, Legco's Committee on Members' Interests agreed to hold meetings to discuss the Lau case, but did not decide at the time whether to conduct a formal investigation.
In a submission to Legco's panel on constitutional affairs in November, the government asserted its belief that Lau 'did not infringe the declaration requirements deliberately'.
