Holistic anti-graft strategy keeps corruption under control
2011-1-5
Despite the impact of the global financial tsunami, the corruption situation in Hong Kong remained stably under control in 2010, said Advisory Committee on Corruption Chairman Mrs Laura Cha.
Speaking at a press conference today (Wednesday), Mrs Cha revealed that in the first 11 months of 2010, the ICAC received 3,174 corruption reports, representing a 1% decrease over the same period in 2009. Amongst these reports, 2,460 were pursuable.
Meanwhile, of the graft reports, 63% or 2,011 concerned the private sector, 30% or 951 were against government departments and 7% or 212 involved public bodies. A total of 366 persons from 170 cases were prosecuted and the case-based conviction rate was 88%.
Mrs Cha also noted that probity had become a core value among Hong Kong people, with the territory’s anti-corruption achievements well recognised in various international studies and surveys.
Joining Mrs Cha at the annual press briefing to review ICAC’s work in the past year were the chairmen of the Operations Review Committee (ORC), Corruption Prevention Advisory Committee (CPAC) and Citizens Advisory Committee on Community Relations (CACCR).
ORC Chairman Mr Michael Sze Cho-cheung said that non-anonymous complaints received in the first 11 months of 2010 reached a relatively high percentage of 74%, indicating continued public confidence in ICAC’s anti-corruption work.
Mr Sze noted that in the private sector, building management (896), catering and entertainment services (147), and finance and insurance (111) attracted most complaints.
Most of the building management related reports were of a trivial or speculative nature whereas illegal rebates remained a common practice in the catering and entertainment services industries warranting ICAC’s continuous enforcement.
The ORC was also concerned with corruption-facilitated listing frauds, corrupt collusions in obtaining credit and insurance agents defrauding over commissions uncovered in cases involving the finance and insurance sector.
While reports against government departments dropped by 3% to 951, Mr Sze cautioned that abuse of office, failure to exercise due supervision, undesirable association with persons in official dealings, as well as improprieties in public procurement and ou tsourcing, and some government funding schemes remained areas of concern.
He added that the abuse of office cases mainly involved minor irregularities such as non-compliance with proper procedures or lax supervision, which would be dealt with seriously to prevent them from giving rise to corruption opportunities.
Mr Sze said that there had been isolated cases of disciplined services officers involved in criminal activities, but such cases were not of an organisational or systematic nature.
He also advised that the ICAC needed to continuously optimise its investigative resources, reinforce investigators’ capabilities and strengthen ties with Mainland counterparts in coping with the increased challenges in law enforcement.
On the Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance, the Committee noted the large number of complaints involving minor and technical breaches every time an election was held, taking up considerable amount of ICAC’s investigative resources.
Mr Sze said that the Committee supported the ICAC’s proposal to seek the Government’s assistance to simplify the mechanism for handling such complaints.
On the prevention front, CPAC Chairman Mr Philip Chen Nan-lok reported that in the past year, ICAC had focused its efforts on areas of public concern including building management, non-governmental organisations and government funding schemes.
Mr Chen also revealed that the ICAC had reviewed the operations of a number of government funding schemes. Currently there were 25 such schemes administered by different departments involving a combined initial fund size of over $20 billion.
Initially some vulnerable areas were identified in some of the schemes, such as lax approving criteria, the lack of effective monitoring mechanisms and the absence of a record checking system against applications for benefits from different schemes.
The ICAC would promulgate two best practice checklists later this year respectively for funding authorities and grantee organisations in view of the substantial amount of public funds involved, he added.
According to Mr Chen, the ICAC would also partner with universities to strengthen capabilities to prevent corruption in the administration of donations, commercialisation of research projects, outside practice of staff and procurement.
In reviewing the Commission’s education efforts, CACCR Chairman Professor John Leong Chi-yan said the ICAC had made sustained efforts to entrench the probity culture of Hong Kong at all sectors of society.
In the past year, the ICAC launched a pilot scheme to introduce a “personal ethics” module for university students for the first time. This module would be further refined and extended to all universities as part of the tertiary curricula.
The ICAC continued to make use of the new media to promote positive values amongst young people, with initiatives such as a recently launched website tailor made for youngsters. It would also explore the possibility of co-organising a multi-media competi tion for youth with its Mainland and Macao counterparts, riding on the success of a TV commercial competition held last year.
Professor Leong also said that the ICAC would launch in 2011 a series of educational and publicity programmes on clean elections for various public elections and step up preventive education for small and medium sized enterprises, the testing and certific ation industry, and estate agencies.
Speaking at a press conference today (Wednesday), Mrs Cha revealed that in the first 11 months of 2010, the ICAC received 3,174 corruption reports, representing a 1% decrease over the same period in 2009. Amongst these reports, 2,460 were pursuable.
Meanwhile, of the graft reports, 63% or 2,011 concerned the private sector, 30% or 951 were against government departments and 7% or 212 involved public bodies. A total of 366 persons from 170 cases were prosecuted and the case-based conviction rate was 88%.
Mrs Cha also noted that probity had become a core value among Hong Kong people, with the territory’s anti-corruption achievements well recognised in various international studies and surveys.
Joining Mrs Cha at the annual press briefing to review ICAC’s work in the past year were the chairmen of the Operations Review Committee (ORC), Corruption Prevention Advisory Committee (CPAC) and Citizens Advisory Committee on Community Relations (CACCR).
ORC Chairman Mr Michael Sze Cho-cheung said that non-anonymous complaints received in the first 11 months of 2010 reached a relatively high percentage of 74%, indicating continued public confidence in ICAC’s anti-corruption work.
Mr Sze noted that in the private sector, building management (896), catering and entertainment services (147), and finance and insurance (111) attracted most complaints.
Most of the building management related reports were of a trivial or speculative nature whereas illegal rebates remained a common practice in the catering and entertainment services industries warranting ICAC’s continuous enforcement.
The ORC was also concerned with corruption-facilitated listing frauds, corrupt collusions in obtaining credit and insurance agents defrauding over commissions uncovered in cases involving the finance and insurance sector.
While reports against government departments dropped by 3% to 951, Mr Sze cautioned that abuse of office, failure to exercise due supervision, undesirable association with persons in official dealings, as well as improprieties in public procurement and ou tsourcing, and some government funding schemes remained areas of concern.
He added that the abuse of office cases mainly involved minor irregularities such as non-compliance with proper procedures or lax supervision, which would be dealt with seriously to prevent them from giving rise to corruption opportunities.
Mr Sze said that there had been isolated cases of disciplined services officers involved in criminal activities, but such cases were not of an organisational or systematic nature.
He also advised that the ICAC needed to continuously optimise its investigative resources, reinforce investigators’ capabilities and strengthen ties with Mainland counterparts in coping with the increased challenges in law enforcement.
On the Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance, the Committee noted the large number of complaints involving minor and technical breaches every time an election was held, taking up considerable amount of ICAC’s investigative resources.
Mr Sze said that the Committee supported the ICAC’s proposal to seek the Government’s assistance to simplify the mechanism for handling such complaints.
On the prevention front, CPAC Chairman Mr Philip Chen Nan-lok reported that in the past year, ICAC had focused its efforts on areas of public concern including building management, non-governmental organisations and government funding schemes.
Mr Chen also revealed that the ICAC had reviewed the operations of a number of government funding schemes. Currently there were 25 such schemes administered by different departments involving a combined initial fund size of over $20 billion.
Initially some vulnerable areas were identified in some of the schemes, such as lax approving criteria, the lack of effective monitoring mechanisms and the absence of a record checking system against applications for benefits from different schemes.
The ICAC would promulgate two best practice checklists later this year respectively for funding authorities and grantee organisations in view of the substantial amount of public funds involved, he added.
According to Mr Chen, the ICAC would also partner with universities to strengthen capabilities to prevent corruption in the administration of donations, commercialisation of research projects, outside practice of staff and procurement.
In reviewing the Commission’s education efforts, CACCR Chairman Professor John Leong Chi-yan said the ICAC had made sustained efforts to entrench the probity culture of Hong Kong at all sectors of society.
In the past year, the ICAC launched a pilot scheme to introduce a “personal ethics” module for university students for the first time. This module would be further refined and extended to all universities as part of the tertiary curricula.
The ICAC continued to make use of the new media to promote positive values amongst young people, with initiatives such as a recently launched website tailor made for youngsters. It would also explore the possibility of co-organising a multi-media competi tion for youth with its Mainland and Macao counterparts, riding on the success of a TV commercial competition held last year.
Professor Leong also said that the ICAC would launch in 2011 a series of educational and publicity programmes on clean elections for various public elections and step up preventive education for small and medium sized enterprises, the testing and certific ation industry, and estate agencies.