CONFIDENTIAL
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
機密
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
The Background
Few problems in Hong Kong have in recent years received as much public attention as that of corruption. And quite rightly so. Corruption defeats the purpose of law and policy, and undermines public confidence in the Administration.
The Operations Department of the Independent Commission Against Corruption has brought a large number of people before the courts. Among the accused were civil servants who were alleged to be involved in a deep-seated and sinister form of corruption, as members of organised syndicates exercising great power and firmly entrenched in some areas of Government. These syndicates involved many people and netted huge sums of money for the corrupt. With the continuing effort to bring the corrupt to justice, there were definite indications that major syndicated corruption did not exist at the end of 1977.
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Opportunities for syndicates to grow and to flourish in Government departments arose from a number of weaknesses. As an example, inadequately defined Government policy which sometimes led to legislation which was unenforced or found, in actual practice, to be unenforceable. From this basic weakness arose opportunities to apply particular laws selectively or inconsistently. Matters were at times aggravated by the existence of inadequate operational instructions, inadequate or out of date or unnecessary procedures and excessive discretion being given to staff at disproportionately junior levels. Ill-defined or indiscriminately delegated discretion at junior levels gave officers scope to create their own aims and objectives, with the result that they could, if they were so inclined, corruptly take advantage of the situation. On a broader plane, there was widespread ignorance of government policies, practices and procedures, resulting from insufficient publicity; the public was thus vulnerable to government servants who used their special information and position for their own corrupt ends.
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However, there was one fundamental failure which increased the malign effects of all these weaknesses the failure to exercise effective management and supervision. It was hardly surprising that with the uncovering of syndicated corruption, the public (including many civil servants) asked how the widespread misuse of position could have escaped the attention of senior officers for so long. Possibly it was because some supervising officers were aware of or suspected tho malpractices, yet preferred not to change the situation or report its existence, either because of inertia, or fear that the revelation would reflect adversely on them. The other possibility is that some senior officers could themselves have been corrupt. On the other hand, there could have been supervisory officers who had attempted to call to account their junior officers but became frustrated at their inability to make any progress. Clearly few supervising officers have been called upon by their senior officers to explain, to account for, the existence of widespread malpractices of which conscientious officers should have been aware. If they had been called to account, the growth of much of the syndicated corruption could well have been checked at an early stage. It was against such background that this study on the concept of supervisory accountability was started.
CONFIDENTIAL
機密
1
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