ICAC Vs ICAC

Recently got quite disturbed by a piece of news in Hong Kong. The ex-head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong Timothy Tong Hin Ming was reported to have involved in corruptive acts while he was still on the job. Reports have it that he was spending public money to hold and invite Chinese officials to banquets and providing them with expensive gifts. Also involved in this was his partner, who was also using the ICAC money to attend these functions. It was revealed that during his office Timothy Tong had hosted more than 20 lavish banquets for top office holders in China and spent over HK$200,000 on expensive gifts to these Chinese officials.

At the time of writing the Timothy Ton had gone into “hiding” and still has not come out to explain his actions nor was there an official inquiry to this whole mess. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong Leung Chun-Ying seems to be unwilling to get involved at this stage claiming that the ICAC should complete their own investigation before other public inquiry should be carried out. There were also ex-ICAC officials coming out trying to salvage the now tattered image of ICAC claiming that Timothy Tong does not represent ICAC and so people should not judge the operation of ICAC according to the behaviour of this person. At the same time other ex-ICAC officials have started a petition for a public enquiry into this whole saga.

There are several things that troubled me in relation to this whole thing.

Firstly, The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Leung Chun Ying did not come out to make a statement immediately. His first public statement was only made two weeks after the news broke. Yes he might want to have more information before making a formal statement but then as a responsible Chief Executive, two weeks is too much considering that this is not a trivial issue – corruption claims against the body set up to fight against corruption. There are members of the Legislative Council who criticised Leung for trivialising this matter, which I do not blame them for their frustration and anger. Seriously, does Leung think that announcing no National Day fireworks is more important than making a statement and stand on the corruption claims on Timothy Tong? As the head of Hong Kong, it really baffles me about his ability to prioritise work.

The other thing that worried me was that so far there wasn’t a list of those Chinese officials that Tong was “building relationship” with. I do not know whether such a list exists but then it would be important for the public to know who these people are so that transparency could be achieved when it comes to a fullscale investigation. Who these people are could help to reflect Tong’s motivation to shower these people with gifts and inviting them to lavish banquets. I supposed maybe it is hard to obtain such a list as this would get the Chinese Government involved, but two weeks on the lack of transparency on the Chinese side was quite astounding in my opinion, especially the new head of state had publicly announced that he was determined to fight corruption in the Chinese Government.

Thirdly, Timothy Tong was still not “invited for coffee” (this is the local slang for being investigated by ICAC) and is still hiding from the public. Although there were reiterations that ICAC will conduct an internal investigation on this matter, but the fact is under such circumstance whether an internal investigation could help to rebuild the image of ICAC that was destroyed by Timothy Tong. An investigation might be an established procedure but the fact is we should assess the impact of this matter. Timothy Tony is not just any official he was the head of ICAC, a public person representing ICAC when he was in the office. Under such circumstance I personally do not think that an established internal investigative process would be sufficient to rescue what is left of ICAC after two weeks of intensive negative press.

This whole saga makes me really think about how serious is the current Hong Kong Government when it comes to fighting corruption in the territory. Or is it that now Hong Kong is part of China the new Chief Executive just thinks that Hong Kong should “blend in”? It pains me to see that while the press is following this matter intensively, the Hong Kong Government just sits there and waits it out. If that is the attitude of Leung Chun Ying about this matter, what is left for doing “clean business” in Hong Kong? Hong Kong spent decades to build up a clean business image to achieve it success today, does Leung Chun Ying still care about it or is he just happy to have the position of Chief Executive of Hong Kong on his CV and cares about nothing else? That is the question I have.