Lawmaker says scandal-plagued Norman Lo ‘should at least have his pension cut back’
NG KANG-CHUNG AND OWEN FUNG
UPDATED : Thursday, 05 May, 2016, 9:47pm
Norman Lo has headed the Civil Aviation Department for 12 years. Photo: Dickson Lee
The controversial head of the Civil Aviation Department, who presided over a series of scandals, including the botched procurement of a new air traffic management system, is to be replaced.
Norman Lo Shung-man, 59, will start pre-retirement leave on May 19 after almost 40 years in the department, 12 of them as its head. His deputy, Simon Li Tin-chui, will take over as director-general of civil aviation, the government said on Thursday.
Pan-democrats have urged the government to hold Lo accountable for the blunders at the department in recent years.
Lawmaker Wong Yuk-man said: “An official who was involved in so many scandals should at least have his pension cut back.”
Kenneth Leung, the accountancy legislator, said Lo’s departure might be a good time to review the long-delayed air traffic control system, which was originally planned to be ready in 2012 but has stability issues.
A media exposé in 2013 revealed a series of blunders in the procurement of the HK$570 million Autotrac 3 system.
In a report last year the Legislative Council’s Public Accounts Committee “strongly condemned and deplored that [Lo] ... had blatantly failed to perform his responsibility and duties in ensuring the due diligence relating to the [air traffic management system] was conducted adequately and thoroughly”.
In 2014, Lo was forced to offer a public apology after an audit report finding pointed out multiple violations to the original plan for new department headquarters at Hong Kong International Airport, including building an extra 1,500-square-metre space, spending HK$67.5 million on security and electronic systems, and building a shower in Lo’s office. None of the changes had government approval.
Then in the recent “baggage-gate” controversy, Lo was criticised for insisting that security rules were not breached when a third party was allowed into a restricted area of the airport to deliver luggage that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s daughter had left at a check-in desk.
A spokesman for the department said Lo was not prepared to comment.
Lo joined the government in 1976 and the following year moved to the Civil Aviation Department as a student air traffic control officer. He is also a professional pilot.
Li, 57, joined the department as assistant operations officer in 1983 and rose to assistant director-general in 2010. He was appointed deputy director-general in 2014.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1941577/exit-door-hong-kongs-controversial-aviation-chief-replaced
