Hong Kong’s anti-corruption agency received a slight increase in complaints last year, with the correctional services recording the biggest spike in allegations among all government departments.
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The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on Monday revealed that it received 2,058 complaints in 2024, a 3 per cent increase from the 2001 cases in 2023.
Bernard Chan, chairman of the agency’s operations review committee, said among the 480 complaints against the government departments, 44 were against the Correctional Services Department (CSD), marking a 144 per cent rise on the year before.
But Chan pointed out that no prosecution had yet been launched on those complaints relating the CSD.
“A complaint does not necessarily equate to prosecution as a result. Complaints are just a set numbers and data, [we] do not think we should deliberately compare the figures year to year,” he said.
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The chairman said if the public looked at the allegations recorded on average in the past five years – standing at about 548 per year, the city had in fact seen a low record of suspected corruption overall.