MR CHAN KIN-POR (in Cantonese): President, I must make a declaration before all else. I am the chairman of the owners’ committee of a large housing estate comprising over 2 700 units on Hong Kong Island.
Bid-rigging has turned into a “malignant tumour” in society and the most thorny problem in building management. Busy at work during the daytime, Hong Kong people naturally want to take a bit of rest after returning home from work. If they are so unlucky to encounter bid-rigging and still have to be troubled by related matters after returning home, they will actually be unable to live a happy life. I know some victims who not only have to worry about an enormous amount of maintenance fees but also have to face various disputes long term. All this is an ordeal and absolutely a mental torture to them.
Bid-rigging has turned increasingly serious day after day mainly due to the colossal sums of money involved in maintenance. The amount can be as much as tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. This has naturally induced many unruly elements to set their eyes on such projects. Besides, some of the existing laws regulating building management are already obsolete or not stringent enough, thus enabling unruly elements to succeed without much difficulty. During my participation in the work of the owners’ committee throughout all these years, I have personally seen some major loopholes in the building management system. Some examples concern the process of setting up owners’ corporations (“OCs”), OCs’ passage of resolutions and the proxy instrument mechanism. I have come to realize that there is a persistent lack of regulation or checks and balances in these aspects, and this has enabled unruly elements to do whatever they want by exploiting the loopholes. As I have already discussed the relevant details on various occasions previously, I will not repeat them today.
In fact, this Council has actively followed up the issue of building management and held many related motion debates over all these years, including the debate on bid-rigging today, and Members have raised many proposals. In gist, the Government must amend the legislation in order to plug the loopholes. I have also conveyed my practical experience to the Government in detail. The consultation paper recently published by the Government on the proposed amendment of the Building Management Ordinance has also taken on board some of my proposals.
The amendment proposals put forth various measures targeting at bid-rigging. One example is that the quorum of a general meeting for the purpose of passing a resolution on endorsing a large-scale maintenance project will be raised from the original 10% to 20% of all property owners, at least 10% of whom shall attend the meeting in person, as a means of raising the threshold of approving a works project. Besides, in order to prevent an OC from endorsing a works project with the voting support of a handful of property owners holding large numbers of “proxy instruments” (commonly known as “proxy forms”), property owners will be allowed to expressly state their voting instructions on such authorizations, and the number of proxy forms held by each person must not exceed 5% of all property owners.
I generally agree to these directions of amendment. But speaking of the management standards and established practices that OCs must follow, the Government has said that it will adhere to the existing mode of issuing codes of practice setting out best practices only. I have great reservations about this approach because in practicality, such codes of practice are not legally binding. Even if anyone utterly fails to follow them, he will not have to bear any consequences or liabilities. Failing to achieve any practical effects, such codes of practice will be utterly unable to deter those parties with ulterior motives. The Government did not enact stringent rules and regulations in the past because it wanted property owners to form OCs on their own to take up the legal responsibilities for their buildings. The result shows that the Government has successfully achieved this objective, in the sense that OCs have been formed in many buildings. But after the passage of some time, many shortcomings have emerged. The Government considers that the addition of criminal liability in such codes of practice may undermine people’s desire to participate in OCs. But actually, as long as people do not break the law, they utterly need not worry about any subsequent criminal liability. We must realize that self-discipline alone is not sufficient to stop unruly elements (including OC members with ulterior motives) from committing forgery. Criminal liability should be added to certain codes of practice, to say the very least.
Besides, even if the amendment proposals are passed in the end, we still have to count on government departments to enforce the law properly and exercise regulation. At present, the Home Affairs Bureau and the Home Affairs Department are in charge of these tasks. But their workloads are already very heavy, so they will utterly be unable to cope if they are required to enhance their regulatory efforts. For this reason, I agree to setting up an additional dedicated department or even entrust an existing statutory body (such as the Urban Renewal Authority (“URA”), which is responsible for implementing the “Smart Tender” scheme) with the dedicated task of comprehensively overseeing building maintenance. I believe this can bring forth more effective law enforcement and even provide residents with comprehensive assistance in building maintenance.
Furthermore, the “Smart Tender” scheme is also an important tool for combating bid-rigging. The Budget delivered by Financial Secretary Paul CHAN this year specifically proposes to earmark $300 million for property owners participating in URA’s “Smart Tender” scheme at a concessionary rate. It is projected that 4 500 buildings will benefit from this in the next five years. I think it is absolutely a benevolent measure. Meanwhile, URA has also relaxed the application requirements to enable an overwhelming majority of buildings currently with owners’ organizations to make applications to the scheme. I hope the Government can undertake vigorous publicity, or even proactively invite the participation of buildings with such needs. I believe that after large numbers of buildings have conducted maintenance works with the assistance of the “Smart Tender” scheme, sufficient market information can be made available for property owners’ reference. By that time, it will naturally be difficult for anyone to succeed in bid-rigging.
I so submit.