THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 1968
OFFICIAL BLASTS BRIBERY
A senior Government official today attacked indus- trialists for accepting corruption as a way of life.
The Assistant Director of Commerce and Industry, Mr J. D. McGregor said that from this January to March 23 bribes were offered to people in his department by industrialists.
"Manufacturers do not realise that by offering 'tea money' they are perpetuat- ing a vicious circle of cor- ruption, which eventually rebounds on their heads," Mr McGregor said,
"These offers range from meals to cash,
"Many are made by factories
which have no problems at all.
"They simply do this to obtain goodwill.
"By encouraging civil servants to accept tea money, they are helping to perpetuate and expand the widest possible system corruption
'An officer who accepts gifts very soon learns how to demand them and from there it is a short step to becoming a fully corrupt officer."
Mr McGregor said: "Despite all the efforts made by my department to obtain co-opera- tion from industry, our efforts are clearly shunted off."
He said he did not believe prosecuting the offenders was the only way to end corruption. The answer lay in the public attitude and education, he added.
In 1966, Mr McGregor said, his department's officers were offered 82 bribes last year, 102 wach offers were reported.
Mr McGregor said he couldn't understand why the anti-corrup- tion work was not more widely publicised.
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Debate
"This seems to me to be one of the ways in which public co- operation can be obtained," he said.
He said he favoured public debate on the problems of cor- ruption.
"The public should be asked in to join the debate by bring- ing these problems into public discussions in a constructive way," he said.
“I think corruption in Hong- kong is becoming an economic and social menace.
"It can also have political im- plications-an opening for a Communist propaganda attack on the Government."
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