Chief Executive’s Office releases new conflict of interest guidelines

News› Hong Kong

Tony Cheung tony.cheung@scmp.com

The Chief Executive’s Office unveiled on Wednesday new guidelines for the handling of potential conflict of interest cases involving principal government officials.

The guidelines [1], which were posted on the website of the Chief Executive’s Office, come in the aftermath of a series of controversies surrounding Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po and his former political assistant Henry Ho Kin-chung.

The most important change to the new guidelines states that family or friends’ business and social affiliations are now specified as an official’s private interests, if it could be seen as influencing policy-making.

Private interests are listed as “the financial and other interests of the officer himself, his family and other relations, his personal friends, the clubs and associations to which he belongs, any other groups of people with whom he has personal or social ties, or any person to whom he owes a favour or is obligated in any way.”

Previously, the code for principal officials, updated only last year, specified that an official must report to the chief executive if his or her private interests might appear to influence their judgment in performing duties, but it did not define the extent of such interests.

Since last month, Chan has been facing calls for him to step down after it was revealed that his wife and her family owned land in the Kwu Tung area, site of one of the government’s and Chan’s department’s major housing development projects.

Chan declared these interests to the chief executive two months after his appointment as secretary in July last year, too late, according to most of the government’s critics.

Ho, Chan’s political assistant, resigned last Friday after failing to declare his family’s ownship of four lots of land in the same Kwu Tung development area. Chan once held a stake in these plots along with family members through a private company founded by his father and uncle.

Paul Chan Mo-po

Henry Ho Kin-chung

Paul Chan’s political aide Henry Ho quits over Kwu Tung new town controversy [2]

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying stands by Paul Chan in land row [3]

Ho family: we’re a victim of new-town plans [4]