Assistant director of the Lands Department Anita Lam Ka-fun was alleged to have acted improperly over her and her husband’s land purchase in Yuen Long
DANNY.MOK@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Friday, 25 March, 2016, 12:24pm
The farmland owned by Assistant Director of Lands Anita Lam Ka-fun and husband Thomas Tang Chiu-man in Tsing Tam Village, Shek Kong. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
Hong Kong’s graft-buster has dropped an investigation into alleged corruption and misconduct by a high-up official during a land purchase in Yuen Long.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption said it had completed its investigation into complaints made in August 2014 against assistant director of the Lands Department Anita Lam Ka-fun.
In July 2012 Lam and her surveyor husband Thomas Tang Chiu-man bought 8,274 square metres of agricultural land in Tsing Tam village, Shek Kong, for HK$18.8 million.
The site of 13 plots was just outside the boundary of the area being studied for the planned Kam Tin new town.
That was five months after Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah said the government would invite the MTR Corporation to study development opportunities in southern Kam Tin.
In May 2014, the couple applied to the Town Planning Board to build four houses on two of the 13 plots.
The board’s Rural and New Town Planning Committee, of which Lam was an official member, and the current planning director Ling Kar-kan was chairman, approved the application on July 25, 2014.
Lam had declared her interests and was excused from the discussion during the meeting.
But committee member David Lui Yin-tat said the application should be vetted by a third party because Lam’s colleagues’ involvement in the issue could be seen as unfair.
Tang sat on the Town Planning Appeal Board Panel.
Anita Lam Ka-fun farming at the site. Photo: TVB
An ICAC spokesman said on Thursday the Department of Justice had found insufficient evidence to establish Lam had committed any criminal offence. It decided not to raise a prosecution.
The result of the investigation was reported to the independent Operations Review Committee, which endorsed that ICAC take no further investigative action at a meeting on Wednesday.
The committee agreed that the investigation’s findings should be referred to the Director of Lands for consideration of disciplinary or administrative action.
A Lands Department spokesman said as the follow-up action involved primarily internal disciplinary considerations, it was not appropriate for the department to make comments at this stage.
The department reviewed its requirements on declarations of interest for private investments, and had put forward recommendations in mid-2015 for staff consultation.
A suggestion in the review required all directorate staff and a number of non-directorate officers with relatively sensitive duties to consult managers before making any investment in land and topside properties.
Democratic Party chief executive Lam Cheuk-ting said on Thursday he was shocked and worried that the ICAC’s decision would further compromise public confidence in the integrity of city officials.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1930555/hong-kongs-icac-drops-misconduct-investigation-lands
