TNAG-0407-FCO40-453-Allegations-of-bribery-and-corruption-in-the-Hong-Kong-polic-1973 — Page 50

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What The STAB thuks

Eleven!-Why not 1,100?

T WOULD be much more encouraging to I this community to be told

to

civil servants who would he brought to trial on corruption allegations is 1,100 — instead of the modest figure in recent reports of 11. Wouldn't it more accurately reflect the current state of affairs if small fry as well as careless big fish are all counted?

Yet II is perhaps quite an accomplishment for our Anti-Corruption Branch, handicapped as it obviously is.

Few unfortunately now could be expected in this community.fully to co-operate while policemen are still used in the Branch however high may be their personal integrity

to catch the corrupt in Government, believing as this community does that the Police Force is itself seriously corrupt. Re-organising the Anti-Corruption Branch outside the Force would be the fastest way of recovering the integrity of the Force itself.

It is an urgent matter, for our Force is our only

means of maintaining law and order.

Its reputation must be above reproach. Our Government should call on Whitehall to help with re-organisation in the same way as it does to staff the Special Branch. And the re-organised Anti-Corruption Branch should remain as much Whitehall's respon- sibility as it is our own.

Similarly our local Target Committee should be divested of all but token Police Force representation.

The new Anti-Corruption Branch's work should be slow and thorough, so as not unnecessarily to upset the efficiency of the Police Force and those other Government departments where cor- ruption is believed to be rampant. If extradition is not possible nobody should go

on home leave until the job is done. Simultaneously, we might also call on outside experts to examine the organisation of our Police Force, which McKinsey says is old- fashioned and has an authoritarian image. Perhaps some outsiders could tell us how to reform the Force, so that at all times it could be seen in future to be a worthy servant of the 'people?.

STAR

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