Hong Kong leader apologises for deadly Tai Po fire, pledges reforms

By Clare Jim

HONG KONG, Oct 29 (Reuters) – Hong Kong leader John Lee apologised on Thursday for the deadly blaze that killed 168 people in the city last November, promising swift but extensive reforms to its building industry and regulatory system.

Lee was speaking shortly before he released a more than 1,000-page report by the judge-led panel that detailed wide-ranging governance and supervisory failings in Hong Kong’s building-renovation system.  

Lee also announced the resignation of Hong Kong’s Housing Secretary Winnie Ho, echoing the report by saying that four government bodies bore partial responsibility for a blaze that the report said was most likely started by a “glowing source…likely a cigarette”.

“As chief executive and head of the government, I am deeply saddened,” Lee said in his opening remarks.

“On behalf of the SAR government, I offer my apologies to the victims and the public at large.”

Ho was the first official to resign over the inferno. The Hong Kong government has set up an independent team to investigate which officials should be held accountable and to outline disciplinary actions.

Lee said Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary Eric Chan will now head a steering committee to oversee reforms advocated in the report, which will include laws to criminalise bid-rigging across the construction industry with fines of up to HK$10 million and 10 years’ imprisonment.

The committee report said contractor Prestige Construction & Engineering Co Ltd and project consultant Will Power Architects Co Ltd should bear primary responsibility.

At least 25 criminal charges related to the Wang Fuk Court fire have been made against Prestige, Will Power and seven individuals, including manslaughter, conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and tax evasion.

But the report also went further, outlining widespread unlawful and dubious construction practices as a “corrupt eco-system”.

The rigging of bids involved many different parties, some linked to triad organised crime gangs, it said.

“The fire has been put out, but the reform has only just begun,” the report stated.

“The Committee finds that no Government department took effective ownership of various fire safety issues and complaints about fire hazards fell into a vacuum,” the report stated.

The blaze ripped through seven 31-storey tower blocks at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex, which was undergoing renovation work in the northern Tai Po district. It was the deadliest in the city since 1948. Thousands of residents were displaced after their homes became uninhabitable.

The committee held 30 hearings this year with 80 witnesses, including residents, property management and renovation personnel, engineering and fire experts, government officials and regulators. It evaluated more than one million files and submissions as it investigated the cause of the fire and reviewed oversight of building renovations.

(Reporting by Clare Jim; Additional reporting by Anne Marie Roantree and Farah Master; Writing by Greg Torode; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Saad Sayeed)