Deliver accountability for Tai Po fire tragedy or admit system is broken

One word will hang over the Hong Kong community in the run-up to next month’s anniversary of the dreadful Tai Po fire that took 168 of our fellow citizens’ lives: accountability. By the time we mark the occasion, we will know if we still have a system based on ministers taking political responsibility for failures in their policy areas or whether we must revise our constitutional arrangements.

The fire at Wang Fuk Court, which broke out on November 26 last year, traumatised the whole population of our city as well as devastating the lives of those directly involved, first responders, survivors and victims’ families alike. There was an outpouring of sympathy and support as people everywhere rallied to do what they could to help.

The government established a committee of inquiry, led by Justice David Lok Kai-hong, to ascertain what went wrong. The public hearings revealed a harrowing tale of poor professionalism, shoddy work and missed opportunities. The committee’s full report was handed over last week. Four government bodies – the Fire Services Department, Buildings Department, Labour Department and Independent Checking Unit of the Housing Bureau – were identified as being to some degree blameworthy.

Now comes the hard part: accountability. This is a very hot topic. I wrote about it just two weeks ago in a column mainly focused on the construction industry but with an eye to the future fire report. I received more feedback from that piece than from any of the other columns I have written since 2010.

There was also a mainland angle. Someone translated the article into Chinese and posted the translation, together with the full English text of the original, on social media known to be used by mainland officials.

When it comes to accountability, there are three groups to consider: companies and individuals in the private sector, civil servants in any department and ministers as the heads of the bureaus concerned.

The first group is relatively easy to identify and handle. Companies and individuals found to have breached the law can be prosecuted, and those whose performance fell short in ways short of criminal liability can be banned or suspended from bidding for future government work. The relevant enforcement authorities can determine those in the first category and draft charges to be brought before a court of law. Those in the second category can be dealt with administratively.

Dealing with civil servants is less straightforward. Some can be identified from the evidence given to the inquiry and could be named in the report itself. The Civil Service Bureau has established a special task force to consider whether there are grounds to take disciplinary action against individual officers.

Presumably they will be looking into cases involving staff at directorate level two and below. The Public Service Commission itself can decide whether there is a case for disciplinary action against more senior officers such as heads of department or permanent secretaries, in which case the task force would be asked to act in support.

Civil servants are normally permanent, and there are legal safeguards to protect them against arbitrary removal to preserve their neutrality. Discipline cases against them are therefore formal proceedings in that proper charges must be drafted, with legal advice, and laid against the officer who must have an opportunity to respond.

The final result can be a wide range of punishments, such as financial penalties, loss of seniority or even dismissal. The point here is that the accountability process will take time, the outcome is uncertain and the result is unlikely to satisfy public anger.

02:48

Wang Fuk Court residents hope people ‘learn lessons’ as hearing ends

There is no such statutory protection for the ministers involved: Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho (responsible for the Buildings Department), Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho Wing-yin (responsible for the Independent Checking Unit), Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han (responsible for the Labour Department) and Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung (responsible for the Fire Services Department).

They are political appointees who owe their positions to the personal recommendation of Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, as endorsed by the central government in the form of Xia Baolong, the head of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. They are accountable for the political implications. After a disaster on the scale of Tai Po, all four ministers should step up to take responsibility, even offer their resignations to Lee.

When the ministerial system was introduced, high status and pay were justified by the precarity of the position and the fact that holders could lose their job even if they were not directly responsible for the errors because someone needed to accept political responsibility.

If no minister has been held accountable by next month, when TV screens and newspapers are full of Tai Po commemorations, we will know the system has broken down.