Remarks by CE on matters related to Wang Fuk Court fire in Tai Po at media session (with photo/video)
Following are the remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr John Lee, on matters related to the Wang Fuk Court fire in Tai Po at a media session today (December 12):
Reporter: Good afternoon, Mr Lee, some English questions. Firstly, would the Independent Committee have less investigative power to summon evidence and witnesses unlike a commission of inquiry, especially when the circumstances may not have officially been constituted as a crime yet? How would the Government intend to address this potential issue? With regard to your nine-month time frame as you mentioned, is this enough time? And do you foresee a possibility that you'll have to extend due to, as you mentioned, the complex and large-scale issues that the committee has to face? And the second question, on the potential redevelopment of Wang Fuk Court, what's the Government's plan and time frame on it so far? Does it have an idea where these funds will come from? And also, do you foresee a challenge in getting a consensus from the thousands of residents involved? Thank you.
Chief Executive: First of all, it is a mammoth task for the Independent Committee (Independent Committee Established in Relation to the Fire at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po) to achieve examining two very big issues. The first is regarding the causes and circumstances that led to the fire, including the examination of fire service installations and equipment in the buildings, and the supervision and responsibility for their effective operation; whether the construction safety requirements, standards, supervision and day to day maintenance regime for the building maintenance and renovation works were adequate; regarding the building maintenance and renovation works, whether the prevailing list of materials meeting safety standards is comprehensive, and whether related verification and testing systems are effective; the roles and responsibilities of personnel with supervisory roles across all stages, including government offices, authorised professionals, contractors and others; and the liabilities arising from the aforementioned issues. For just this theme, under this topic, you can say the amount of issues to be examined is already a lot.
Then the Independent Committee will have to look at another very important issue, which is, regarding large-scale building maintenance and renovation works, to examine whether there are systemic problems such as undue connected interests, conflicts of roles, or improper collusion across all stages of the works; and whether bid-rigging corruption or irregularities were involved in the tendering process of these works. You can see this second issue is an issue that has been troubling a lot of Hong Kong people, because we all live in buildings, and we all, at some stage, will be doing large-scale renovation work, so it affects everybody. We have been seeing cases where a lot of problems have arisen. We should indicate that there are systemic problems, as I have highlighted in this second topic.
So you are right, nine months is a very challenging time indeed, but I want to solve the problem as quickly as possible. I want to give what I regard as a realistic time frame, provided the Independent Committee is given sufficient means to manoeuvre. While ensuring the examination is just, they can streamline the procedure and be given more flexibility, so that they can finish their work within the nine months. I also have given them a reserve power; that is, if the Independent Committee considers, while examining all these complicated issues, there may be one which they think, by exercising the power that is given to a statutory commission of inquiry, will help them complete their work, then I am very willing to consider a recommendation by the Independent Committee to seek appointing them as the commission of inquiry. This is the reserve power I will give to them. First, to tell everybody that we must co-operate and assist the Independent Committee to do its very important job, because when the Independent Committee wants to exercise statutory powers, they will be given according to the law and the procedure with the CE-in-Council, considering the recommendation and then deciding to appoint a commission of inquiry with the Independent Committee functioning as such. That will help the Independent Committee to finish all the different issues they want to address within the nine months.
I also have mentioned that the Independent Committee can always submit interim reports for issues that they believe have finished their work and let the Government take immediate action. I am very grateful to Mr Justice Lok, because he wants to really help Hong Kong as a whole to address and solve all these problems. He shares the same belief as I do, to ensure that we can do it as soon as possible. I must express my sincere gratitude to the three members of the Independent Committee. It is a big responsibility and challenging tasks within only nine months, but they all have the passion and the love for Hong Kong to be so courageous to take up this responsibility. I am really thankful to them. I take my hat off to them.
Regarding the long-term housing issues for the victims and the families who suffer in this Tai Po big fire, of course, I am very concerned about the arrangements that may be made possible to take care of their needs, but they have very divergent needs, obviously, because we have so many families, and each family may have their own thinking. There have been a lot of views about what we can do, and I have explained them in my opening. What is important is to listen to what they want. I think they may want things very differently, and whether we will be able to have different options for different families to choose is important, so collecting views from them is very important. Everybody has a very good heart, trying to help them, but I think it will be up to them to tell us what they want, even though there may be different wants and different needs. At the same time, they are still undergoing a difficult period of big transition. While I ask the Task Force (Task Force on Emergency Accommodation Arrangements) to collect views, I think they have to do it in a very tactful manner. We do not want to upset the families while they are at this difficult time. There may be a process for the Task Force to go through to talk to the families in a tactful and right way at the right moment of time as well. That may take a little bit of time, but as I have always asked my people to do, we always want to finish all these things as soon as possible, because the sooner we address all these issues and problems, the quicker we can recover our normal life. I do remember the important message given by Dr CC Lam (Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Mental Health, Dr Lam Ching-choi) when he talked about the importance of mental health and psychological health, which is we should try to come back to normal, day-to-day life as soon as possible. That will be helping not just society but, most importantly, helping the victims and helping their families to go through this difficult time. We will work on that.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the remarks.)
Remarks by CE on matters related to Wang Fuk Court fire in Tai Po at media session Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases
