Top Hong Kong security officials to escape further punishment over hotpot dinner after city’s leader decides they did not break other rules or laws
- Chief Executive Carrie Lam says customs boss Hermes Tang, immigration director Au Ka-wang, and deputy security minister Sonny Au in clear
- Lam compares social-distancing fines handed out to trio for incident in March to parking ticket or fine for littering
At the weekend, Lam said people should look at the incident in a “more humanised way”, and dismissed concerns over the trio’s integrity.
“As their supervisors at various levels, the chief secretary, the security secretary and I agreed unanimously that [the trio] was not involved in other rule-breaking acts, and they did not break any rules knowingly,” she said.
“This was not a blatant attempt to breach the regulation … Our unanimous view is that they were not involved in any other act that requires further investigation.”
Under the Civil Service Bureau’s regulation on public sector workers, which applies to the customs and immigration chiefs, civil servants should not accept “lavish, or unreasonably generous or frequent” entertainment that could put them in an “obligatory position in the discharge of their duties”.
The code for officials under the political appointment system, which governs Sonny Au, has a similar provision.
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Asked if the trio had violated these codes, Lam cited the Security Bureau’s stance that the officials were only attending a “social gathering”.
“There is no definition of what a lavish dinner is, or what is being unreasonable and so on,” she said. “At the end of the day it was a matter of judgment. But I would say this, it would be too harsh to say that no public officers could attend social gatherings, I hope you would not go to that extreme as that since you are a public official, you should not go to any social gathering when invited.
“Since they were invited, how could they know whether it’s a lavish dinner? So, to put such a harsh requirement on the officials that they need to know exactly what they are going to eat, or to drink in a social occasion … would be not very reasonable for public officials.”
Lam added that senior officials had turned down invitations to some occasions, just like she turned down “99 per cent of invitations to social gatherings”.
Democratic Party district councillor Ramon Yuen Hoi-man accused Lam of being lenient with her officials but tough with others.
“If the three officials indeed have done nothing wrong, why would they fear any independent probe?” he asked.
Yuen argued it was inappropriate for Lam to equate the breach of a social-distancing rule with receiving a fixed-penalty ticket for illegal parking.
“The incident has affected residents’ impression of officials’ probity,” he said. “Members of the public may not find officials who park illegally ‘corrupted’, but it will really affect their trust in officials if they receive lavish treatment.”
