For years, Winfield Chong Wing-fai, an executive committee member of the Democratic Party and long-term advocate against bid-rigging, has juggled countless invitations from Hong Kong residents to attend meetings of owners’ corporations, so homeowners can seek his advice on building maintenance projects.
The number and frequency of those invitations increased exponentially after last month’s deadly fire in Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court, which revealed the secrets of a murky and rapacious building renovation business, including the dubious practice of contractors paying companies to select them for their bids.
But Chong has struggled to manage the workload.
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“I used to be able to handle 90 per cent of the cases I received in the past, but now I think I can only tackle around 10 or 20 per cent,” Chong told the Post last week.
The 51-year-old was referring to the days when the Democrats – once the biggest opposition party in Hong Kong – held seven seats in the Legislative Council, with dozens of district councillors across the city equipped with the resources to handle residents’ appeals for help.
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That was until Beijing’s imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, following months of social unrest the year before, and the ensuing electoral overhaul, which stipulated that only “patriots” could hold political power in the city.