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The current pressure on one or two superintendents to explain their wealth is commendable, if they are guilty of corrupt practices. But it does not constitute the vigorous action necessary to knock-out substantial organised graft, to disrupt effectively the established system by which retainers can be offered anonymously in police stations, apparently from a divisional kitty, by runners of corrupt police elements who by the nature of organised police graft have more power than an Inspector appointed by the Crown, When in 1963/64 one former Inspector complained of organised graft to then Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home who referred the matter to the Hongkong Government for police investigation, one Inspector, caught in the backwash of the inquiries, resigned. In the decade since this tatty example, it appears that organised graft has continued. It is not enough to cut off the occasional head: there must be an externally-appointed commission of inquiry in which all, civil servants and public in Hongkong, can have confidence, so that issues can be properly defined and the correct solutions formulated. It is not enough to dismiss by "thorough examination" of questionable documents the direct evidence of witnesses to abuse who have consistently placed a higher value on the Rule of Law and the principle of public accountability than upon the apparent interests of certain merchant parties, their shareholders and, it most regrettably appears, their parliamentary protectors.
Yours sincerely
Clar Sur
"Jui
ALAN ELLIS