To provide a quality living environment, facilitate economic growth and enhance Hong Kong's competitiveness, the Government moves full steam ahead with the construction of a number of infrastructure projects as well as public housing. It is expected that Hong Kong's overall construction volume will soar to some HK$300 billion a year.
Integrity is one of the cornerstones underpinning the successful implementation of these construction projects. To help industry players build up and boost their immunity against corruption, the Corruption Prevention Department (CPD) of the ICAC developed a corruption prevention “vaccine” – the Integrity Management System (IMS) – for “injection” into their management and operational systems. IMS consists of three key active ingredients: Integrity Policy, Integrity Training and Integrity Risk Management (IRM).
In March 2021, the Development Bureau (DEVB) incorporated the first two components of IMS as a listing requirement for the “List of Approved Contractors for Public Works” and “List of Approved Suppliers of Materials and Specialist Contractors for Public Works”, covering about 800 construction companies. The result is that all contractors undertaking government construction projects will have to implement an Integrity Policy and arrange their senior management staff member to regularly attend Integrity Training. In April 2022, the Construction Industry Council (CIC), which is currently operating the Registered Specialist Trade Contractors Scheme for the registration of various contractors/subcontractors, also followed suit and added integrity management as one of the registration requirements for their registered contractors and subcontractors, covering some 8,000 contractors/subcontractors.
To extend IMS to all construction companies in the industry, in September 2021 the ICAC, the DEVB and the CIC jointly launched an industry-wide “Integrity Charter” campaign to promote voluntary adoption of IMS by construction companies. As of December 2022, over 250 companies have joined the Integrity Charter and the ICAC has organised a total of 26 training sessions reaching out to about 6,000 construction industry practitioners.
To assist companies to adopt the third component of IMS, i.e. IRM, CPD developed and issued a set of IRM guidelines and four IRM toolkits, covering 20 integrity risks and some 100 recommended control measures, and produced a short training video on IRM in September this year.
In December 2022, CPD launched the Construction Industry Integrity Charter 2.0 to cover consulting firms in the construction industry as well. To commemorate this important event, CPD has published a video featuring the ICAC Commissioner Mr Danny Woo Ying-ming, DEVB Permanent Secretary for Development (Works) Ir Ricky Lau Chun-kit, CIC Chairman Ir Thomas Ho On-sing, and CIC Executive Director Ir Albert Cheng Ting-ning, to appeal for support from the industry. CPD will continue to provide free tailor-made corruption prevention services to construction companies and consulting firms to assist them to implement IMS.
To find out more about the Construction Industry Integrity Charter 2.0, please contact the Integrity Charter Secretariat by email:integritycharter@cpd.icac.org.hk or visit the dedicated website.
Last update : 30 December2022
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