Hong Kong’s John Lee apologises for Tai Po fire, unveils reforms as housing chief resigns

During the two-hour-long press conference, Lee and the ministers announced that his administration would take political accountability and pledged reforms in seven areas to combat bid-rigging in building maintenance works and improve the regulatory framework and support services.

It will revise six pieces of legislation. The changes, among a raft of reforms rolled out on Thursday, drew swift praise from Beijing, which commended Lee and his team for their determination to tackle the issues decisively.

The government will give more teeth to the Competition Ordinance to criminalise bid-rigging, targeting major building repair works including preliminary work and consultancy services.

It will also amend the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance (OSCO) and the Independent Commission Against Corruption Ordinance to empower law enforcement agencies to summon witnesses for interviews, gather evidence and freeze assets, while allowing the ICAC to exercise statutory powers.

A team under the Public Service Commission will launch a three-month investigation into 40 to 50 officers and interview about 100 civil servants to determine whether they had committed errors, misconduct or breaches of relevant regulations.

Lee said that Ho, the secretary for housing, should bear political responsibility as the fire broke out at the subsidised housing estate, which falls under the regulatory purview of the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit (ICU), although he stressed she had not committed any personal wrongdoing.

He said he had taken into account a wide range of factors, including officials’ roles in the matter, their policy portfolio and its connection to the incident, whether the problems related to policy or execution, subordinates’ performance and the large amount of work the political team had to do in the time ahead.

At the briefing, Lee was grilled repeatedly over whether his administration’s apology came too late and if more ministers or he himself should be held responsible for the tragedy, with queries on political accountability forming the bulk of question time.

Asked whether he should shoulder the blame as chief executive, Lee said he was “deeply pained” by the fire and had apologised to the public and the victims in his capacity as the city leader.

“After self-reflection, I have considered that the government needs to undergo major reforms, and there is a lot of work to be done,” Lee said.

“As Hong Kong’s top leader, my main responsibility is leading the government to face and solve the current problems.

“It is important that we do not allow similar tragedies to happen; this is the number one priority in implementing this comprehensive reform.”

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Hong Kong leader apologises for deadly Wang Fuk Court fire, announces housing chief’s resignation

The reforms were announced on the same day the government accepted and released a damning report by a judge-led independent committee investigating the fire at the estate, which had been undergoing extensive renovations. The report was submitted to the authorities last week.

The 1,154-page report, released 11 months after Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades, said the tragedy resulted from faults and deliberate misconduct by private sector players and “decades of failure” by government bodies overseeing the construction, building management and fire safety engineering industries, and a “slack enforcement attitude”.

It identified unscrupulous contractors, consultants and professionals from several private companies, including project consultant Will Power Architects and contractor Prestige Construction and Engineering, as the main culprits of the tragedy; it also named four government departments that it said bore part of the blame.

It went so far as to suggest the tragedy could have been avoided. With no government department taking effective ownership of the safety risks, repeated complaints from residents “fell into a vacuum”.

It said that if the departments had a “sense of crisis” about the risks, plugged loopholes in the regulatory regimes and were more “people-centred”, there was a “real possibility” the misconduct of the private sector and fire hazards could have been rectified or even removed before the blaze.

The committee pinned the biggest share of responsibility among the four bodies to the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit for a lack of oversight of renovation work at Wang Fuk Court.

The failings of the unit, along with those of the Buildings Department, it said, were due to a “lack of sense of crisis, regulatory lapses, systemic blind spots, and enforcement failures.”

The other two government bodies criticised in the report were the Fire Services Department and the Labour Department.

While Lee repeatedly explained his rationale behind housing chief Ho bearing the brunt of the deadly blaze, the heads of the three other departments singled out by the committee did not directly answer questions from the press on Thursday despite being asked to comment.

The chief executive said he put forward two demands to his political team: to advance reforms and draw lessons from the incident to implement his result-oriented governance philosophy.

Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki will lead a steering committee to oversee the progress of the reforms across the different departments, pledging to go the extra mile to ensure no stone is left unturned.”

Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun announced that the Independent Checking Unit would be axed and replaced by a public housing control unit.

Wong, who is also acting secretary for housing, said the new unit would cover all public rental housing and subsidised-sale housing, and operate based on each project to improve communication among stakeholders.

A new unit under Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po will also be set up to provide new building renovation support for homeowners, helping homeowners whose homes are undergoing building maintenance works and operating on a for-profit basis.

Lee said he would report to Beijing “in accordance with the usual way of reporting what is necessary”, and that implementing reform was his government’s only goal and he had no “personal thinking” in the matter.

Following the press briefing on Thursday afternoon, Beijing praised the government for being pragmatic and responsible in its quest for accountability and reforms.

A spokesman for Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong lauded Lee for leading various departments in rescue work, adding that the city government had started reforms while the committee’s investigation was ongoing.

“The Hong Kong SAR government has been determined to rectify all wrongs, check all misconduct and seek accountability for all issues, showing a proactive response to society’s concerns,” the spokesman said.

The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office also praised the city government for “fully demonstrating” its sense of duty and commitment through its proposed reforms and public apology.

“It reflects an administration committed to putting people first and upholding the rule of law, as well as an institution resolved to face problems squarely, advance reforms, and continuously enhance governance efficacy,” the office under China’s State Council wrote in a commentary published under the pen name “Gang Ao Ping”.

The investigation into individuals, companies and civil servants “effectively responds” to public concerns and “fully reflects” the integrity and courage of a responsible government, it added.

The commentary also warned against “certain individuals with ulterior motives” attempting to distort facts and exploit the tragedy to incite public discontent and sow social division.

The government earlier proposed an overhaul of fire safety regulations, proposing to expand firefighters’ law enforcement powers and impose additional responsibilities on management firms and contractors.

Lee took pains to point out that some of the systems were created during the third and fourth term of government, which eventually led to the current-day failures.

He said the independent committee’s report had examined the weakness of present systems and his administration was serious in fully redressing all inadequacies.

“We are doing all these things despite that some of the systems actually originated many years ago, and we are doing a comprehensive reform rather than just bits and pieces measures.”