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Willa Wu

Vivian Au

A vague public apology and blaming a procedural “flaw” have failed to quell public discontent over the government’s water procurement scandal, political analysts have said, urging Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu to accelerate developing a civil servant accountability system.
Analysts made the call on Friday as the government said that the central tender board, chaired by the permanent secretary of the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau, had given the final approval to the bottled water contracts involved. The confirmation meant more senior officials were involved in the decision-making process.
The growing debate on the saga followed an apology by Government Logistics Department director Carlson Chan Ka-shun on Thursday.
The director apologised “on behalf of his department” for awarding a three-year HK$52.9 million (US$6.8 million) bottled water contract to Xin Ding Xin Trade, which allegedly used fraudulent documents.
Chan, who has led the department since 2022 and is expected to retire soon, also attributed the saga to a system flaw that could not weed out scammers who combined illegally obtained authentic documents with forged ones to win bids, adding that the current tender policy for goods procurement did not require checks of bidders’ financial backgrounds.
Lau Siu-kai, a consultant for the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies think tank, said on Friday that the way Chan apologised implied that he wanted to highlight collective responsibility.
“It could be much better if he would also offer his personal apology to make it more sincere and accepted by society, especially among civil servants,” Lau said.
Xin Ding Xin was meant to supply drinking water sourced from the Guangzhou branch of mainland manufacturer Robust (Guangdong) Drinking Water to government offices on Hong Kong Island and outlying islands from late June for three years.
But Robust later told the Government Logistics Department that it had nothing to do with the contracted firm, a move that prompted the authority to first partially terminate the deal and then cancel six contracts with Xin Ding Xin.
Police had arrested Xin Ding Xin’s director and his shareholder wife on suspicion of fraud and providing false documents for the tender.
Lau also noted that blaming a system failure did little to quell social discontent.
“Merely accusing the system will neither stop the public’s call for personal accountability,” Lau added.
Lau, who used to head a government think tank, the Central Policy Unit, for a decade from 2002, stressed that the water procurement saga was not a “political issue” but an “administration problem”.
“The biggest impact of the issue was to harm the local government’s authority, while making the public’s calls for an accountability system for civil servants stronger,” he said.
A Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau spokesman confirmed that the central tender board had given approval to contracts involving Xin Ding Xin and other two suppliers of bottled water.

According to the Government Logistics Department, Xin Ding Xin would supply 1.88 million bottles for HK$52.9 million, while the contract values of the other two suppliers responsible for Kowloon and the New Territories were HK$47.62 million and HK$65.49 million, respectively.
Asked whether more senior officials should be held accountable for the issue, Lau said the most important thing now was to conduct a thorough investigation to identify which step went wrong and who was responsible for that task.
But he added that it would be unreasonable to ask a senior official to micromanage everything within his department.
“The key is whether he has raised the questions he should have asked before he makes the final decision,” Lau said.
Former legislator Chan Yuen-han, of the Federation of Trade Unions (FTU), agreed with the urgent need to set up an accountability system for civil servants, while stressing that Thursday’s apology was not enough.
“The procedure has been practised for a long time but still such a problem emerged. Not only [Carlson] Chan but also officials ranked higher than him should be accountable or maybe resign to respond to the issue,” she said.
Lawmaker and FTU president Stanley Ng Chau-pei, a member of the city’s key decision-making Executive Council, said the government had already provided an explanation to the public, adding that the federation had not discussed the incident yet.
Asked whether the government should launch a new accountability system for senior civil servants, Ng said authorities would first need to figure out what had happened.
“I believe the government will have an arrangement in place,” he said.
Chief Executive John Lee announced in June that authorities were considering introducing a new accountability system that would punish underperforming senior civil servants with pay freezes.
He said he hoped to enhance the leadership and roles of senior officials in managing recurring or broad issues within their own departments.
Nelson Chow, president of the Hong Kong branch of the Institute for Supply Management, said that the central tender board was typically involved in the final approval stages, assuming that the lower-level departments were responsible for conducting due diligence and fact-checking.
He added that bottled water was a product with significant safety implications and should not be classified as low-risk, suggesting the government’s handling of this process revealed a procedural flaw with insufficient due diligence.


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Apology for Hong Kong water scandal not enough to stem public’s anger: experts

(From left) Permanent Secretary for the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau Andrew Lai, treasury chief Christopher Hui and logistics department director Carlson Chan. Photo: Karma Lo

A supply management expert has said that bottled water is a product with significant safety implications and should not be classified as low-risk. Photo: Eugene Lee

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Xin Ding Xin is accused of using a third-party factory for producing bottled water. Photo: Karma Lo

Xin Ding Xin Trade’s registered address is in a North Point building. Photo: Jelly Tse

‘I apologise to everyone’: Hong Kong official admits system failed to detect water fraud

Carlson Chan (centre) says the growing water scandal has sparked doubts over the safety of drinking water acquired by the government. Photo: Karma Lo

Christopher Hui (centre) during the first meeting of the task force reviewing official procurement processes. Photo: Handout

Mount Guanyin mineral water plant in Zhangmutou township in Dongguan. Photo: Karma Lo

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Jugs of Watsons Water. Photo: Eugene Lee

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Politics

Analysts call for system to punish underperforming civil servants as the Post learns more senior officials involved in contract decision-making


Analysts call for system to punish underperforming civil servants as the Post learns more senior officials involved in contract decision-making.


Apology for Hong Kong water scandal not enough to stem public’s anger: experts

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Analysts call for system to punish underperforming civil servants as the Post learns more senior officials involved in contract decision-making

Analysts call for system to punish underperforming civil servants as the Post learns more senior officials involved in contract decision-making