Poor performing Hong Kong civil servants will face the boot, city leader John Lee warns as he launches revamp to improve governance
- Chief executive unveils raft of new measures to improve how city is run, including policy unit, task forces and benchmark indicators
- While Lee insists new bodies will improve coordination, critics ask whether efficiency will truly be improved
The buck will have to stop somewhere, Hong Kong’s leader made plain on Wednesday as he warned that consistently underperforming civil servants typically used to an “iron rice bowl” could face being fired in a “timely manner”, as he unveiled a revamp to improve governance and accountability.
Under a new reward and punishment system for the city’s 180,000 civil servants, those who exhibit “excellence” will also be publicly recognised by the new “Chief Executive’s Award for Exemplary Performance” on a regular basis from next year.
Enhancing governance capability, one of the “four hopes” President Xi Jinping laid down for the city government, took up a major chapter in John Lee Ka-chiu’s maiden policy address.
The array of measures he unveiled to fulfil his “result-oriented” approach to governance also included setting up a high-level policy unit, a few steering committees and task forces for policy coordination, and for the first time – listing 110 indicators in the annex to ensure progress could be tracked.
Lee stressed the indicators were not there to punish anyone when the goals were not reached.
“If an indicator is not met, we may have to see if there are some special reasons,” he said. “But of course, if it is because of [the official] being lazy, then, there may be consequences.”
Asked if the numerous new bodies would result in needless duplication of internal efforts, Lee, who joined the civil service as a policeman, said in a press conference: “Without coordination and command to unite forces, those taking part are only a motley crew. It’s difficult to achieve things.”