Hong Kong needs a governance revamp, not just a chief executive change

The national security law and electoral overhaul will help maintain social stability, but cannot restore public trust in the government
This will require ensuring officials develop political acumen and are held responsible for mistakes, and that public opinion is taken into account

Tik Chi YuenandCasper Wong

Published: 8:30am, 9 Jul 2021

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Former chief executive Leung Chun-ying seems to have his sights set on contesting the chief executive election next year. He has been outspoken in his criticism of the government on various issues.

Meanwhile, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, our current chief executive, is also very active. She has been trying to highlight her governing ability and increase her popularity by, for example, buying the rights to broadcast the Tokyo Olympics and boosting the city’s vaccination rate.

The keen competition between the two leaders has been a hot topic recently. But this may not be what the central government is happy to see. A hotly contended election does not guarantee progress.

Hong Kong is politically unstable and its government enjoys little public trust. Thus, the central government’s primary concern is to keep the situation under control, so that the Hong Kong government has more space to improve public policies and execute them smoothly, restoring public confidence.

03:13

Leung Chun-ying on his proposal to build housing on country park land

While the Hong Kong government’s performance has been severely criticised, it is questionable if the problems facing the government can be solved just by a change of personnel through the chief executive election. The government faces challenges that are systemic and institutional. A change of personnel does not guarantee good policy implementation. The system of governance itself must change.

The Hong Kong government often talks about wanting to “serve the people”, being “people-oriented” and “worrying about what the people worry about”. From a management perspective, providing excellent services means meeting the needs of the service users.

The central government has revamped Hong Kong’s electoral system to reduce the obstacles facing the Hong Kong government. Alongside this, the system must be amended to ensure accountability of the politically appointed officials, efficient and effective public opinion collection, and that the political acumen of governing officers is enhanced.

The current government has made many mistakes but no politically appointed officials have so far been held accountable. Some officials did apologise for the government’s wrongdoings but none have resigned to take responsibility for a failed policy.

Some would argue that nobody would serve as a politically appointed official if they were often requested to step down when they make mistakes. But this is what genuine accountability and commitment is. Without such courage and commitment, it would be better to abolish the political appointment system.

Officials must make known to the public the targets of their respective policies and develop a set of key performance indicators that the public can monitor. When indicators are not met, the concerned officials should be held accountable.

02:34

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Next, the government must improve its system of collecting public opinion. The colonial government had a comprehensive and effective system for this. The Central Policy Unit that oversaw the collection and analysis of public opinion data also gave political and policy advice to the chief executive, chief secretary and financial secretary. But after Lam abolished the Central Policy Unit, it is unclear how the government collects public opinion.

In the past, through the district administration, the government could listen to people’s opinions and explain policies to the public through the grass-roots organisations. But today, communication at the local level is much weaker.

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The government could take the pulse of public opinion from around 4,000 people in over 400 consultative committees, but today, most members of these committees are pro-establishment, making these bodies the apparatus of the government.

The government must re-examine the public opinion collection system so it can assess public opinion effectively and critically, and craft policies that meet the needs of the population. Even if the government insists on its own way, it still needs a good communication system to explain its ideas to and lobby the public, helping to narrow the differences between the government and the people.

Executive councillors are the chief executive’s core advisers. They should have wide networks and be able to effectively gauge public opinion, giving the government access to a variety of views, helping execute policies and explaining them to the public.

They should use their political influence to do what the administration may not know how to do or may not be in a good position to do. But today, the ex officio executive councillors, several of them from political parties, mainly help consolidate support for the government in the legislature.

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Moreover, most politically appointed officials are civil servants. Their strength is administration, but their political judgment is weak. Given that Hong Kong is a highly politicised society today, such a governing team cannot handle complicated social issues.

The national security law and electoral system overhaul could help maintain political stability, but they cannot regain public trust. Because the lack of public trust is the result of unpopular government decisions and policies, the core way to regain it is effective government policies.

As the selection of the new leadership of Hong Kong gets under way, we look forward to new breakthroughs in governance based on fresh ideas.

Tik Chi Yuen is a former legislator in Hong Kong and chairperson of Third Side. Casper Wong is vice-chairperson of Third Side