A government's maintenance works subcontractor, charged by the ICAC for offering bribes to employees of the Architectural Services Department (ASD) for inflating the estimated costs of works orders and speeding up payment to the subcontractor, was jailed for 10 months at Eastern Court today (Friday).

Yip Siu-tak, 43, proprietor of Sun Wah Engineering Company (Sun Wah), was today found guilty by Magistrate Mr Timothy Casewell on six counts of corruption offences.

Sun Wah is a subcontractor of ASD's maintenance projects.

The case arose from a corruption complaint alleging that some ASD officers might have accepted advantages from ASD subcontractors to cover up false claims.

Eleven ASD officers were arrested during an ICAC operation in October last year in connection with suspected bribery scams in relation to maintenance works at various government properties. Seven civilians, including Yip, were also arrested in connection with the investigation.

Yip was convicted on four counts of offering a total of $80,000 in bribes to ASD Property Services Officer (PSO) Tse Kam-yan between March 1 and October 9 last year under Section 4(1) of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.

The bribes were rewards for Tse to inflate the estimated costs of ASD's works orders issued by him, and to cause prompt release of interim payments for works carried out by Sun Wah in accordance with the relevant works orders.

Yip was also convicted of offering Assistant PSO Wong Chee-keung and Works Supervisor II Ho Kuk-kun each $5,000 whilst having dealings with them between February 4 to February 29, 2000, contrary to Section 8 of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.

The court heard that Wong and Ho were responsible for supervising maintenance works in Mongkok and Yaumati respectively.

The advantages were offered to the two ASD employees around Lunar New Year in 2000, in the form of "lai-sees".

The prosecution was today represented by Government Counsel Chiu Wai-tin, assisted by ICAC officer Simon Ip.