Hong Kong’s development minister has promised a public account of her bureau’s oversight of the Queen Mary Hospital lift saga, while stopping short of saying whether a new accountability system for department heads would be invoked.
Nearly two weeks after Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu tasked the Development Bureau with submitting a report within a month, Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho said she would get to the bottom of the defective works at the hospital, which left 24 of the 28 lifts at its new 34-storey clinical block deemed unfit for use.
“Why did those issues occur with the lifts? When were those problems identified, or why have they not been identified yet? All of this will be detailed in the coming report we will submit to the chief executive, which will subsequently be disclosed to the public as well,” she told a television programme on Saturday.
But Linn stopped short of saying whether she would invoke the Heads of Departments Accountability System, unveiled in last year’s policy address, stressing the first phase of the follow-up investigation had already begun.