Tai Po fire: Hong Kong gov’t to set up company to assist owners with building renovations, criminalise bid-rigging
The Hong Kong government will set up a company to provide property owners with building renovations support, authorities have said, as part of reforms announced following the release of an investigation report on the deadly Tai Po fire.
Leading a press conference with the city’s top officials on Thursday, Chief Executive John Lee said authorities will establish a “building management support bureau.”
Finance Secretary Paul Chan said authorities were recruiting a chief executive and other roles for the body, which will be a non-statutory firm, with the aim of registering the company by the end of the year.
The company will be held by the Financial Secretary Incorporated, a corporation that owns companies set up to handle government projects.
“The… bureau will, in accordance with the government’s strategies, formulate and update building renovation measures, and will offer property owners all-new building renovation services at a cost,” Chan said in Cantonese.
The government will inject HK$300 million into the company. HK$100 million will be initial start-up funding, while HK$200 million will be used to provide subsidies for property owners using its services, the finance chief added.
The company will take on some of the work of the Urban Renewal Authority, a statutory body set up by the government that also assists building owners with tenders, repairs and other services.
Bid-rigging criminalised
Thursday’s press conference came as a report from a government-established independent committee was released following months of hearings, in which government officials from different department testified about fire safety and renovation matters linked to the Wang Fuk Court blaze.
The housing estate was under a large-scale renovation project when the fire, which claimed 168 lives, happened.
The public hearings earlier this year found that substandard scaffolding nets were used at the site, which caused the rapid spread of the fire, and pointed to potential bid-rigging, links to competing contractors, and “rubber-stamp inspections.”
Chief Secretary Eric Lam said on Thursday that authorities will propose criminalising bid-rigging under the Competition Ordinance. Offenders will face maximum penalties of 10 years’ imprisonment, or a fine of HK$10 million.
The fine can also be specific to the offence, at a maximum of three times the gains from the crime or 50 per cent of the annual revenue earned for each year of the offence.
Currently, bid-rigging is only a civil offence under the Competition Ordinance. Lam said that in cases where there may not be enough evidence for a criminal prosecution, the civil route would remain, with penalties proposed to be increased to a maximum fine of HK$8 million, up to two times the gains from the offence, or up to 30 per cent of annual revenue for a cap of three years of the offence.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang said authorities were setting up a a joint task force, which he will lead, to tackle bid-rigging.
“The report showed that there are people with suspect backgrounds, including triad members, who manipulated tender results and conspired with consultants, professionals and contractors,” he said in Cantonese.
The task force will include officers from the police’s Organised Crime and Triad Bureau, as well as representatives from the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Competition Commission.
Authorities are also mulling the addition of bid-rigging to the list of specified offences under the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance, Tang said, which would give law enforcement powers related to the freezing of assets and demanding certain information.
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Hillary Leung is a journalist at Hong Kong Free Press, where she reports on local politics and social issues, and assists with editing. Since joining in late 2021, she has covered the Covid-19 pandemic, political court cases including the 47 democrats national security trial, and challenges faced by minority communities.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Hillary completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She worked at TIME Magazine in 2019, where she wrote about Asia and overnight US news before turning her focus to the protests that began that summer. At Coconuts Hong Kong, she covered general news and wrote features, including about a Black Lives Matter march that drew controversy amid the local pro-democracy movement and two sisters who were born to a domestic worker and lived undocumented for 30 years in Hong Kong.
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