Officials allowed to send staff on private errands: minister
Commerce minister's remark suggests former chief executive did no wrong in bid to meet pope
Government officials are fully entitled to ask their taxpayer-funded staff members to arrange activities or run errands for them on a private basis, the commerce minister says.
This means former chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, a devout Catholic, did nothing wrong if, as alleged, he asked staff at the Hong Kong economic and trade office in Brussels to help arrange a private audience with Pope Benedict in 2008.
Civil servants at trade offices around the world mainly organised official events for visiting bureaucrats, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Greg So Kam-leung said, but they could also be asked to "assist appropriately" with "non-official activities".
"Priority is given to official meetings," So said, and staff could help with other arrangements such as "private meetings" as long as these did not get in the way of official duties.
He was responding after Civic Party lawmaker Ronny Tong Ka-wah called on the government to explain its role amid allegations of possible judicial interference under the Tsang administration.
Last month, former Italian senator Sergio De Gregorio said that in 2008, he told Duncan Pescod, Hong Kong's then representative to Europe, he would help set up a private audience with the pope during Tsang's official visit.
De Gregorio, then a close associate of Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, asked Pescod in return to stop evidence seized by Hong Kong from reaching Italian prosecutors.