Letters | What exactly keeps Hong Kong government from moving faster

Readers discuss the bureaucratic culture of doing as little work as possible, the top-heavy civil service and why Hong Kong must not forget Deng Xiaoping’s words

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Chief executive hopeful John Lee Ka-chiu (centre) arrives at the New Territories Association of Societies in Tai Po on April 16. Lee has pledged to improve civil service procedures once he takes office. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 11:30am, 22 Apr 2022

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Why does the Hong Kong government work so slowly? This is a question many Hongkongers have asked in recent years. Typical examples include the construction of affordable public housing and the Sha Tin-Central link of the MTR. Some projects not only take years to complete but have also gone considerably over their budget.

Such phenomena are difficult to explain, given that the government usually employs the best-qualified staff and is not short of resources. From my personal observation as an engineer working in the works bureau for nearly 20 years, I reckon that there are two major problems. First, there is too much red tape within various departments. Second, there is the work culture within the government.

Regarding the red tape, chief executive hopeful John Lee Ka-chiu has rightly proposed a pragmatic, “result-oriented” approach, which is the first of his three areas of focus in his future policy.

As for the problem of government work culture, this has developed over the past 20 to 30 years into a culture of doing as little work as possible. Moreover, the quality and quantity of work produced are not of primary concern provided that the appropriate procedures have been followed.

As a result, you will observe the following strange phenomena within the government. Many Hongkongers will have the bitter experience that when they call or go to any government department to request some information or some work to be done, they will normally be referred to another department and so on. By the end of the day, they are back to square one.