Observers say the case makes it painfully plain that the system is in need of an overhaul. Either that, or there is a patent lack of enforcement of existing rules, for which the question of accountability must also be answered.

Hui took out a HK$3 million loan a year before he became chief secretary and political star in chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen’s first cabinet in 2005. Nearly a decade later, not a cent of the principal sum has been repaid to Honour Finance, a subsidiary of SHKP. This alone reflects government’s laxity at tracking officials’ liabilities – or at least demanding their disclosure.

The HK$19 million in illicit payments Hui took from key people in SHKP, meanwhile, were routed through his personal and company bank accounts shortly before he rose to the No 2 position and during his tenure as a non-official member of the Executive Council.

The graft convictions of Hui and Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong, formerly of SHKP, also come as the public and press await further word from the Independent Commission Against Corruption on its checks into Hui’s old boss Tsang and his successor, the incumbent Leung Chun-ying.

Tsang is said to have accepted advantages from various tycoons while in office. Leung allegedly failed to declare HK$50 million that Australian firm UGL promised him in 2011, months before he became chief executive. Currently, Hongkongers have only the faintest idea of the finances of office-holders and public servants.

The Exco, as the top decision-making body, requires all its members to disclose their finances when they enter office and, thereafter, annually. The items they must declare are: paid directorships or jobs they hold and services they render in the course of such appointments; their land, property and company holdings, and membership of boards and committees. These listings are available online.

A second part to the declaration of interests is less transparent. Exco members have a “personal responsibility” to declare any potential conflict of interest beforehand. This is also true of the systems of many developed countries. But there the similarity ends.

The rules on such interests in Hong Kong go on to state: “Based on the interest declared, [the chief executive] assesses whether Exco members may have a potential or real conflict of interests in the item considered by Exco. [The chief executive] will decide whether members should participate in or withdraw from the discussion of that item.”

Given the wide range of matters handled by the Exco, the document tries to spell out different types of interests. Direct interests deemed to be “exclusionary” will require the chief executive to ask the member not to partake of any decision-making related to it. Then, there are “declaratory interests”, which appear to be concerned with a lesser degree of interest, allowing Exco members to stay in related discussions.

Contrast that with the British system of oversight.

Its ministerial code sets out a list of all relevant interests that might be thought to give rise to a conflict. The permanent secretary and the minister will then agree on the handling of such interests and any action taken will be passed to the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team and the independent adviser on ministers’ interest to confirm they are satisfied with the action taken. The final list is made available to the public after all these layers of checks have been satisfied.

In the United States, the oversight is arguably tighter.

The US president, vice-president, members of Congress and their staff, and the judiciary must file annual reports disclosing personal finances. Compliance and enforcement are overseen by the congressional ethics committee, ethics offices of government agencies and, in the case of the executive branch, the US Office of Government Ethics. Officials are limited in the amount of external income they may earn while in office.

Liabilities of more than US$10,000 to any one creditor must also be disclosed.

The financial disclosure forms for the US president, available online, are also very detailed. Apart from assets and liabilities in excess of US$10,000 from a single source, gifts, reimbursements and travel expenses of more than US$350 from one source must be disclosed. The form helpfully gives examples of gifts that must be revealed, such as a “leather briefcase from a personal friend” worth US$385. Another category requires the president to declare “compensation in excess of US$5,000 paid by one source”.

The British and US systems impose far more onerous disclosure requirements, multiple layers of oversight and a high degree of independence in such oversight, well before any whiff of misconduct or corruption is allowed to creep in. Even so, the systems are not above being breached, as the 2009 scandal of British MPs falsely declaring their expenses shows.

Hong Kong has some way to go in tightening its checks. Joseph Wong Wing-ping, a former minister overseeing the civil service, feels that, for example, its interest declaration and integrity checking systems should be made “more complete” and “more stringent”.

In particular, Wong, who worked alongside Hui in the mid-2000s, said the former chief secretary’s borrowing could have been detected if liabilities required mandatory disclosure.

“One’s personal situation could make him or her a target of exploitation,” he said. “If you owe a lot of debt but you enter government with a lot of power, exceeding your salary … this is a big problem.”

There is only an internal surveillance system by which the Civil Service Bureau keeps track of its employees’ borrowings, including mortgages, tax loans and personal loans.

“If some officials borrow too much money, the bureau will send someone to talk to them and urge them to cut down their borrowings,” a senior government official told the South China Morning Post on condition of anonymity.

“In some cases, they may be transferred to less sensitive departments to prevent possible conflict of interests with their creditors.”

The more sensitive departments are the Security Bureau, Development Bureau, which handles land, and the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau, which focuses on banks and brokers.

Hui told his corruption trial he was a man of lavish lifestyle, splashing out millions of dollars on credit card spending that included dining and wining, worldwide trips for classical music concerts and a mainland mistress.
But the unnamed official said office-holders would need to keep in touch with businessmen.

“We have to keep contacts with the business sector to collect their views for policy formulation to meet the market needs,” he said. “As such, it is normal for us to have lunch, dinner or other meetings with businessmen or tycoons all the time. We, however, have to assess for ourselves when to say ‘no’ to prevent a conflict of interests.

“We would pay attention to the menu to avoid overly deluxe dishes or wine. If someone opened several bottles of Lafite 1982 during a dinner, it is definitely not appropriate.”

Exco member and lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who was security secretary when Hui was financial services secretary in the early 2000s, viewed his expenditure with dismay.

“Maybe his past public posts in the financial and economic fields put him in contact with the bigwigs and tycoons in society. His lifestyle, under such influence, had gradually become tycoon-level,” Ip wrote on her Facebook page.

Wong, the former civil service chief, said Hui’s fall highlighted the need for the lifestyles of key officials to be scrutinised in the government’s integrity checks. According to the Civil Service Bureau, the system involves only a form that seeks such information as personal particulars, educational background, social activities, job history and family members. It also requests nomination of two referees.

The issue of conflict of interest in the case of Hui’s dealings in at least two government decisions was all too obvious but no one, it would seem, objected strenuously enough.

First, Hui was hand-picked to oversee the West Kowloon Cultural District project despite his prior role as a consultant for SHKP, which was a party to a joint venture vying for the prime site. (Thomas Kwok was also found guilty in an illicit payment of HK$8.5 million; former SHKP executive director Thomas Chan Kui-yuen was convicted over the same sum, as well as another HK$11.182 million bribe for Hui).

Second, Hui chaired a meeting related to Ma Wan – with Kwok seated across the table. The Housing, Planning and Lands Bureau, precursor to the Development Bureau, was not told of the meeting until Kwok wrote in on Hui’s advice, the trial heard.

Wong said it was unrealistic to avoid people with business backgrounds when filling ministerial positions.

“In a mature democracy, including the US, many ministers come from the business sector, and they return to the sector after stepping down from government positions,” he said.

The real issues are about transparency and disclosure, and maintaining Hong Kong’s reputation as a global city for business.

This was why the public was right to be suspicious of possible collusion between the government and businesses, Wong said.

Sharing this view, former lawmaker Lee Wing-tat of the Democratic Party was among the first to cast doubt on Hui’s appointment almost a decade ago. The prosecution repeatedly relied on 2005 news reports that carried Lee’s criticisms.

“At that time, I was a lawmaker; I learned from my friends that Hui received a lot of salary,” he recalled. What worried him most, he said, was the subtle and opaque manner in which advantages and sweeteners were given by people in control of money.

“It’s unlike the practice on the mainland – businessmen in Hong Kong do not give away bags and bags of cash and gold,” Lee said.

Tsang’s administration, spanning from 2005 to 2012, drew criticism of such alleged collusion. Lee, a lawmaker during that period, said the root cause was Tsang’s colonial belief in government non-intervention and minimal initiative in business decisions. “He relied on property developers to do business. Developers became the major player in the economy,” Lee said. “There had to be an inclination to developers, and a good relationship had to be maintained.”

The dust on the Hui case will probably not settle until the ICAC completes its investigations on Tsang. Whatever the outcome, the calls for greater transparency and tighter oversight of the financial interests of office-holders can only be expected to grow, and in a polarised environment that will take on an even more strident tone. The public wants accountability.

“This judgment is a very big warning to civil servants and public office-holders,” said Ip, who, like Hui previously, sits on Exco as a non-official member. It was the position that Hui occupied when he took HK$11.182 million to be favourably disposed to SHKP. “[Officials] should bear in mind their roles as public servants.”