Hung Hom station of Sha Tin-Central rail link investigated by Hong Kong police two days in a row over missing documents report
- Source says officers acted on a search warrant issued by the court, and have collected piles of documents as experts examine digital footprints
- Separately, lawmakers urge authorities to look into governance issues at rail giant
Hong Kong police have conducted investigations at the troubled Hung Hom station for two days in a row after receiving another government report over problems with the city’s costliest rail project.
On Saturday, officers were seen leaving the station with piles of documents while experts were on the scene to examine computer records. Police had received the report from the Highways Department on the eve of Lunar New Year.
“With the search warrant issued by the court, we collected a lot of papers and will read through them to investigate the allegation of missing inspection documents,” a police source said.
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“Officers from the Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau were also there to look at digital footprints.”
The scandal deepened last week after it emerged that the main contractor had failed to submit more than 60 per cent of inspection documents for work on Hung Hom station, one of the stops along the HK$97.1 billion (US$12.4 billion) Sha Tin-Central link.
With the search warrant issued by the court, we collected a lot of papers and will read through them
After the three-day Lunar New Year break, police went to the office tower of the station to collect evidence on Friday night, and spent another eight hours there on Saturday.
A police spokesman said the case was being handled by the regional crime unit of West Kowloon and no one had been arrested.
The rail link construction has been embroiled in controversy since allegations surfaced last May that workers had shortened reinforcement steel bars to cut corners.
Transport officials had also called in police to investigate that case.
Separately, lawmakers across the political spectrum urged the government to fix management and governance problems with the MTR Corporation, the city’s rail giant and operator of the link.
Speaking on a radio programme on Saturday, architectural sector lawmaker Tony Tse Wai-chuen said the MTR Corp was “bankrupt” in its responsibility as a regulator of its infrastructure projects.
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“The whole system of the MTR Corp has to be reviewed, particularly regarding the role of the board of directors,” he said, adding that part of the board was appointed by the government, which owns a 75 per cent stake in the company.
Civic Party lawmaker Tanya Chan, speaking on the same programme, urged her pro-establishment colleagues to support her motion to invoke the Legislative Council’s special powers to investigate the scandal.
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Should the motion be passed, lawmakers can summon witnesses and demand evidence from parties involved.
But engineering sector lawmaker Lo Wai-kwok, of the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong, dismissed her call, saying it was better to leave the job to the commission of inquiry led by former judge Michael Hartmann.
