Appointees to Hong Kong’s district councils must fully commit to roles or face punishment, No 2 official says

Chief Secretary Eric Chan tells Post that government will hold hand-picked members to same standards as popularly elected peers

‘If anyone is too busy to meet residents and do their job, I’d ask them not to accept the appointment,’ he says

Reading Time:3 minutes

A Wan Chai district council meeting in 2020. The government claims some councils have lost sight of their mission of serving their local communities. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 7:00am, 5 May 2023

Hong Kong’s No 2 official has warned that only those willing to devote the time and commitment required of them should accept government appointments to district councils, which are being overhauled to drastically reduce the ratio of directly elected seats.

Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki told the Post that a new disciplinary mechanism would hold appointed councillors to the same standards as their popularly elected peers in the municipal-level bodies whose focus would be redirected to community work rather than politics.

“For those who can’t do the job because they won’t have time, there will be a mechanism to punish them. Action will be taken against them,” he said, acknowledging that some appointed members in the past had been lax in discharging their duties.

“If anyone is too busy to meet residents and do their job, I’d ask them not to accept the appointment.”

Elected councillors do not necessarily work harder than appointees, Chief Secretary Eric Chan has said in defence of the government’s revamp of the bodies. Photo: Jonathan Wong

The government announced on Tuesday that most of the 470 seats in the next district councils would be appointed or chosen by three local bodies, leaving 88 members to be chosen by the city’s 4.41 million registered voters.