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Keith Wallis

ONE of Hong Kong's leading contractors has admitted it pays money to triads to provide canteen and other construction site services.

  Shui On Building Contractors, which works extensively for the Government and the Housing Authority, openly says it is company policy to use triads.

  ''Triads operate our site canteens and provide site security,'' said director and general manager Louis Wong Hak-wood. ''It is normal procedure to report triad activities to the police unless they are offering some kind of service.

  ''Then it is acceptable for Shui On to use them.''   The firm is part of the Shui On Group whose chairman is Vincent Lo Hong-sui, a member of the China-appointed Preliminary Working Committee.

  Shui On also belongs to the 350-strong Hong Kong Construction Association, which asked for police help two years ago to help combat the insidious infiltration of triads in the construction industry.

  Mr Wong said he saw nothing wrong in hiring triads to run either site canteens or security.

  ''I don't see it as a major problem,'' he said.

  Mr Wong said the only triad-related activities Shui On would not tolerate were gambling and fighting between gangs.

  ''We do not want them to cause trouble for us,'' he said.

  Other top firms, including Gammon and Leighton Contractors, denied having links with triads.

  ''It is more of a problem facing building companies with large numbers of subcontractors rather than civil engineering firms,'' was one response.

  A top detective at the Organised Crime and Anti-Triad Bureau (OCTB) said it was not illegal for firms to pay triad gangs.

  ''Contractors and other firms who pay triads are seen as the victim of the extortion. Only if firms and the triads were working together could there be conspiracy,'' OCTB chief inspector David Fernyhough said.

  Police said triad groups often set up site canteens and provided security as a cover for illegal activities.

  Detective Superintendent Bob Youill said: ''One of the things we have found in our investigations, particularly on long-term construction projects, is that triads rely on providing canteens to create a legitimate revenue stream. They then introduce illegal activities including gambling and loan sharking.

  ''Canteens also provide a convenient observation post to keep an eye on subcontractors, who are then approached for protection money.''   Mr Youill said subcontractors were coerced into paying between $1,000 and $2,000 a month, but main contractors could pay much more.

  ''Payments can vary between a few hundred dollars a month to a million depending upon how long firms are going to be working,'' he said.

  ''We have often found rival groups fighting each other to set up canteens because they offer such a lucrative income.''   Mr Youill believed the police were slowly cracking the hold triads have traditionally had in the construction and entertainment industries.

  Three recent high-profile anti-triad operations had led the public to offer a considerable amount of new and valuable information about triad activities.

  This had led to localised anti-triad operations at district and divisional level.

  ''The more people read about us and know we are doing something the more it seems they are prepared to come forward and help,'' he said.

  But it is an uphill struggle. ''Some contractors refuse to pay. The triads know who they are and leave them alone. Revenge attacks, especially on staff, are very few and far between despite what you might see on television or in the movies.

  ''At other firms it is company policy to pay triads. I am even aware of meetings between senior gweilo project management staff and Chinese staff that openly discussed payments to triads. Yet when you approach the Western staff directly they deny all knowledge.

  ''One company told us that if they stopped paying the triads they would be forced to commit more robberies and more muggings. So the construction company thought they were doing the public a service. Some of the excuses we hear are laughable.''   Mr Youill said the problem was so entrenched that triad payments were budgeted in company accounts.

  These payments were then passed on to government departments or private clients in the form of higher tenders or extra claims.

  ''At the end of the day it is the taxpayer or consumer who pays,'' he said.



Shui On site security run by gangs