JOINT COMMENTS BY MR. J. BARROW AND MR. J.T. WAKEFIELD
ON THE COMMITTEE'S REPORT
34
The tone of the report is fair and impartial, and we thank the Committee for the hard work they have put into their investigations.
2.
Even so, it is inevitable that such a report could not fully cover all the grdund, and we consider that the officers who have to make decisions as a result of this case will get a clearer picture of it if they read in addition our report of the 26th of May to the Committee, which we wrote in an attempt to present the whole story as clearly and objectively as we could. We are accordingly submitting a copy of that report, marginally annotated in the light of subsequent information.
3. Assuming now that the Committee's Report and our Report have both been read, rather than weary the reader with comment on the Committee's Report paragraph by paragraph (which, we respectfully submit, is just what should be asked of us all orally) we proceed to comment generally on the Committee's Report.
4. We are a little struck, looking at the Committee's Report as a whole, by the suggestion that Mr. Au Yeung's specious pleading has made
We consider that in our perhaps undue impression on the Committee. Report, and in such brief interviews as we had with the Committee, we came clean. Mr. Au Yeung's line, on the other hand, we consider to
and be dishonest. He was in charge of the accounts and of the cash, knew it, as did everybody else who counted in the Department, and his attempt to slide out of the responsibility is disgraceful and dishonest. On Mr. Au Yeung's side, the full story, as I, John Barrow, believe it to be is as follows.
5.
The following is by J. Barrow alone.
During my
I returned from leave to D.O.N.T. on 1.3.47. absence (28.6.46) Taipo had been opened up as a Sub-Accountant's Office. Besides being inevitably busy in overhauling the working of my Department (only two Assistants, and they both inexperienced), I was immediately faced with the task of running the New Territories Sub-Committee of the Colonial Development Committee, which the Government had held back for my return. That job alore kept me busy until mid-May, when we presented our preliminary report, and pretty busy right up to the autumn, when our meetings ceased. From March to mid-June I must have been
and in my office on an average three and a half hours overtime daily, I know the Keens, with whom I was living, thought I was slightly touched.
At that time the Clerk in Charge of Accounts was Mr. Chung Tiu Kei ("Chung I" of our Report), who had been a first-rate man in charge of accounts at Taipo pre-war, and had run the accounts in D.O.N.T. from September, 1945, up till then. In May I had complaints against him from Taipo and Pingshan, as a result of which I wrote my instruction to A.D.0.0. of 20.5.47 which is Appendix 5 of the Committee's Report. At my request Mr. Chung Yiu Kei gave written answers to the complaints against him, which satisfied, or partly satisfied, the complainants. The file is available for inspection, if required. Partly before of this, and partly because I needed a good man to help me keep my Sub- Committee and other papers in order, I brought Mr. Chung Yiu Kei into my office as my personal assistant, and put Mr. Chan Leung Tak in charge of accounts in his place, with the clear understanding on both sides that Chan was expected to consult Chung as often as he liked about the accounts, Chung Yig Kei being unquestionably the best man in my Department on accounts.