TNAG-0678-FCO40-827-Allegations-of-corruption-and-bribery-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 4

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CONFIDENTIAL

The

Mr Murrey

-Robert

PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts

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137

29/6.

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HONG KONG: CALL ON LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS BY MR CATER, COMMISSIONER OF THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION AGAINST CORRUPTION (ICAC)

1. Lord Goronwy-Roberts has agreed to see Mr Jack Cater, the Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption at 11.00 a.m. on Wednesday, 29 June. Mr Cater last called on the Minister of State a year ago.

Background

2. In a speech to the Hong Kong Rotary Club on 15 February this year, the third anniversary of the establishment of the ICAC, Mr Cater said that 1977 would be the year that counted in breaking the back of corruption. He gave the following reasons to support

this view:

(a)

that a lot of corrupt individuals had been removed from syndicates and the ICAC had disrupted the activities of many syndicates;

(b) that there was reluctance on the part of syndicates to accept new members;

(c) that the public were showing great courage in reporting evidence of corruption; and

(a) that the back of syndicated corruption was being broken by the police force itself.

At the same time, Mr Cater said that there were still 23 syndicates under investigation, 18 of them in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force (RHKPF), that virtually every police division had at least one syndicate in operation involving many hundreds of persons and that

I hawkers paid several hundred thousand dollars a day in bribes. was told during my last visit to Hong Kong in March that the ICAC was in the process of breaking up two particularly large syndicates in the police force involving some 500 officers.

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CONFIDENTIAL