Independent Commission Against Corruption says increase due to greater trust in body and more publicity
CHRISTY.LEUNG@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 19 January, 2016, 8:06pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 19 January, 2016, 8:14pm
Chow Chung-kong and Maria Tam outline the latest corruption figures. Photo: Nora Tam
Hong Kong’s graft-buster reported a surge in corruption complaints last year, but attributed it to greater public trust in the ICAC and insisted the situation was under control.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption said on Tuesday it received 2,798 non-election-related corruption complaints last year, which is 18 per cent more than the 2014 figure.
Among the complaints, 1,831 were against the private sector, a 22 per cent jump year on year. Complaints against public bodies rose 15 per cent to 200. Those against government departments climbed 11 per cent to 767 cases, with the highest number against the police at 221.
The watchdog’s advisory committee on corruption said the increase was probably due to increasing trust in the ICAC and more publicity in the community for reporting graft.
“I don’t think we need to go into too much interpretation because over the past few years, corruption-related complaints ranged from 2,100 to 4,000,” said committee chairman Chow Chung-kong.
“When we judge the situation of corruption in Hong Kong, we should look at the comprehensive sets of factors, such as the nature of complaints and the success rate in prosecutions.”
Chow stressed that corruption had not worsened and was well under control.
He also slammed politicians for publicising cases they reported to the ICAC , which might give people the impression that the watchdog had become a political tool.
READ MORE: Forty years since its creation, how the ICAC cleaned up corruption in Hong Kong
Last year, 213 people were convicted for corruption offences, a 24 per cent increase.
The watchdog also received 170 complaints about village elections last January and 426 related to the district council polls in November.
Nearly three years after the ICAC launched a criminal investigation into excessive spending of public money by its former boss, Timothy Tong Hin-ming, the graft-buster would only say the probe was still underway.
“With regard to the time required for the investigation, it depends on many factors,” Chow said.
The chairwoman of the ICAC operations review committee, Maria Tam Wai-chu, said members had been regularly updated on Tong’s case.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1903278/no-worries-hong-kong-graft-buster-reports-18pc-rise
