Six people have been charged by Hong Kong’s anti-corruption watchdog for allegedly giving and taking favours in the form of cash, mooncakes, rice dumplings and soft drinks for the free dumping of construction waste at a landfill site that should have generated HK$830,000 (US$106,265) in fees.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said on Tuesday those charged were aged from 31 to 66 and included four Far East Landfill Technologies employees – waste inspector Mak Wah-sing, weighbridge operators Chung Pui-chun, Cheung Kam-ning and Chung Ching-kwan.
The company is a contractor for the Environmental Protection Department.
The two others charged were truck driver Mak Kim-kwan and Lin Wenjian, employees of TS Industrial Materials Recycle.
The ICAC alleges the six conspired to defraud the Environmental Protection Department between January 2021 and June 2022 by disguising construction waste as normal trash for disposal at the Fanling landfill site.
The body also alleges the truck driver was warned in advance when the department was scheduled to carry out inspections, which allowed TS Industrial Materials Recycle avoid construction debris disposal charges at the site, which handles a variety of waste types.
Trucks loaded with construction waste are required to use a special entrance, show department-issued documents to weighbridge operators and disposal charges, which was HK$200 (US$25.60) a tonne (1.1 tons).
Disposal of non-construction waste was free of charge.
The ICAC said the truck driver allegedly offered laisees – envelopes with cash inside – coupons and bottled drinks to four employees of Far East, so they would alert him when there were inspections.
The dodge allowed the company to dump construction waste at the landfill without payment for about a year-and-a-half.
The bribes were worth a total of about HK$50,000, as well as the supply of bottled soft drinks on a daily basis.
The disposal company declared it had carried non-construction waste on about 760 occasions between May and mid-June 2022.
But the ICAC investigation was said to have revealed that about 90 per cent of the truckloads were said at the site to be other types of waste.
The watchdog said more than 4,100 tonnes of construction waste, which would have generated fee income of more than HK$830,000, was dumped free of charge.
The six face a joint charge of conspiracy to defraud and were released on bail.
They are expected to appear at Eastern Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
Truck driver Mak Kim-kwan also faces four counts of bribery and Mak-Wah-sing along with Chung Pui-chun and Cheung, also face charges of accepting bribes.
