Outgoing chief of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Duncan Pescod accuses Hong Kong government of keeping him in dark over exit

CEO Duncan Pescod confirms he agreed with West Kowloon Cultural District Authority chairman Henry Tang Ying-yen to leave at the end of November

But he says in Facebook post that it was earlier than he planned and had come about ‘because the government has decided they want me out’

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Henry Tang with Duncan Pescod. Photo: Robert Ng

Published: 9:54pm, 30 Sep 2020Updated: 5:43am, 1 Oct 2020

The outgoing CEO of the authority managing Hong Kong’s beleaguered arts hub in West Kowloon has accused the government of keeping him in the dark over his early departure, sparking criticism from a board member.

Writing on his Facebook account, Duncan Pescod confirmed that he had agreed with West Kowloon Cultural District Authority chairman Henry Tang Ying-yen that he would leave at the end of November.

In a bombshell announcement on Tuesday, the authority said that with mutual consent between itself and Pescod, its board had approved his tenure as CEO ending on November 28, around eight months before the end of his contract.

“This is earlier than I had planned but has come about because the government has decided they want me out,” Pescod wrote in his Facebook post, which was circulating on social media.

The West Kowloon Cultural District has been beset by problems for years. Photo: Winson Wong

Pescod said he had originally agreed with Tang that he would leave at the end of his current contract next August to allow ample time to carry out a global recruitment exercise.