In Hong Kong, accountability must be more than a slogan

In Hong Kong, accountability must be more than a slogan

The Anderson Road, One Stanley and Queen Mary Hospital cases suggest that the city remains better at talking about accountability than ensuring it

Mike Rowse is an independent commentator.

When news broke last week that three newly completed housing blocks were to be demolished without ever having been occupied, I suffered an immediate attack of deja vu. In early 1974, I was in the first wave of recruits to the Operations Department of the newly established Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

As luck would have it, my first posting was to the team dealing with the old Public Works Department. That was my introduction to the wide world of corruption and shoddy work in the local construction industry. The terrible thing is that some practices seem to have hardly changed at all despite half a century of efforts to eradicate them.

Common problems we found in those days were foundations not dug deeply enough or concrete not up to strength. There seemed to be a particular issue with steel reinforcement bars: there were not enough of them, or they were too short, too thin or in the wrong place. Sometimes they were deficient in all four aspects.

The Anderson Road project is a classic example of the genre. A CK Asset subsidiary was successful in the tender for a residential site in Kwun Tong. There were to be six blocks comprising 2,930 flats for starter homes, at least 1,000 of which were to be sold at a significant discount to eligible buyers as required by the Housing Bureau.