By Chris Yeung
Flashed back to 2000, short piles found in home ownership scheme buildings had shocked and rocked the then Tung Chee-hwa administration. Amid a massive public outcry, the then Housing Authority chairwoman Rosanna Wong Yick-ming stepped down. The then housing department head Tony Miller, a civil servant, kept his job. Tung promised to find ways to improve “executive accountability.” In 2002, the principal official accountability system was inaugurated to enhance political and executive accountability.
Since then, accountability became a buzzword in the city under a partial democracy. Walking the talk of accountability, former health minister Yeoh Eng-kiong stood down in the wake of the outbreak of Sars, which killed 299 people. Former financial secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung resigned after the 2003 July 1 march when more than 500,000 people vented out their anger over a litany of government failures and official mistakes. One of which was Leung’s untimely purchase of a luxurious vehicle before he imposed a rise of vehicle registration fee in his 2003-2004 Budget.
16 years on, the promise of accountability has turned sour. The system and culture of accountability is faced with a fresh big test. This time over a scandal involving a list of public housing estates, where lead was found in residents’ drinking water.
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