Former ICAC chief Timothy Tong grilled on spending by lawmakers
Former head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Timothy Tong Hin-ming on Wednesday refuted accusations that two of his duty visits to the mainland contained excessive non-official activities.
Tong was facing a grilling by legislators on the public accounts committee about inconsistencies between his previous testimony in the Legislative Council on ICAC spending during his reign and that of the findings of an independent review committee on the same subject.
The decision to add Lijiang to the itinerary was made at a rather late stage ... Lijiang is part of Yunan and so the chief executive’s approval of my trip to Yunan covered Lijiang.
In the review committee’s report, Tong was also criticised for adding sightseeing trips to Lijiang and Leshan in Yunan while on two duty visits to the province in 2009 and 2010.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Tong admitted that the excursions to Lijiang and Leshan were added after he obtained approval by then chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen for the Yunan trips.
But Tong refuted the accusation that the visits were for own his leisure. “I disagree these were for leisurely purpose,” he said.