LettersHong Kong coronavirus response: why it’s wrong to blame all cabinet members for faulty government crisis management

Non-official members of Hong Kong’s Executive Council are part-time advisers who play a limited role in policymaking

They do not have executive authority and cannot compel government ministers to heed their advice

2-MIN READ2-MIN

Newly elected Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (centre) and the members of her government’s Executive Council pose for a photo before their meeting at the government offices in Tamar, Admiralty, on July 4, 2017. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 7:00am, 5 Mar 2020Updated: 7:00am, 5 Mar 2020

I refer to Mr Lee Faulkner’s letter (“Crisis is proof government has failed the people”, February 10).

I agree with Mr Faulkner that the run on face masks is a poignant symbol of the government’s inability to meet the people’s demand for self-protection. Even though Singapore is not immune to such panic-driven scrambles, the fact that the mad dash for such products – and even the robbery of toilet rolls – has occurred, reflects deep distrust in the government’s crisis management ability.

Stockpiling is definitely not the answer, as surgical masks and hand sanitisers have use-by dates.

The government could have benefited from better planning for emergencies if it had continued the pre-1997 practice of holding regular, large-scale contingency exercises to test the emergency response preparedness of government departments and affiliated agencies. Unfortunately, this practice has been discontinued for some time.

However, Mr Faulkner’s diatribe against “disastrously incompetent Exco hangers-on” reflects a deep misunderstanding of the roles of non-official and official Executive Council members. The former are part-time advisers, while the latter, namely the bureau directors, are de facto cabinet ministers.

Non-official Exco members do not have executive authority and cannot compel bureau directors to act on their advice, unless the chief executive, the chief secretary or the financial secretary of Hong Kong so direct.