‘Why did it take 11 months?’: apology too late for some Tai Po fire survivors

Hong Kong officials’ apology over the deadly Tai Po blaze nearly a year ago came too late, residents of the fire-ravaged estate have said, as they urged authorities to learn from the disaster and pursue long-term reforms.

Several Wang Fuk Court residents also said on Thursday the resignation of housing minister Winnie Ho Wing-yin could not answer for cross-departmental failings, adding that institutional overhaul would be ineffective unless officials enforced rules, exercised sound judgment and took responsibility for their decisions.

Some members of the public viewed planned reforms as a first step towards tackling bid-rigging and poor building maintenance.

Dorz Cheung, a 34-year-old former resident of Wang Sun House at Wang Fuk Court, said there had been ample time for officials to apologise after the blaze.

“Why did it take 11 months to come out and apologise? Shouldn’t it have been the day after the incident?” he said. “I feel somewhat angry and aggrieved.”

City leader John Lee Ka-chiu earlier said Ho needed to resign as secretary for housing, although no personal wrongdoing was found.

But Cheung said the resignation of just a single official was insufficient when an independent committee report had singled out four government departments for accountability.

Ho should also explain herself to the public, he said.

He also questioned whether new oversight bodies would prevent another disaster, saying that systemic reform would be undermined by poor implementation.

“No matter how well the system is reformed, it is people who put it into practice. Even the best system will achieve nothing if officials fail to enforce it or take responsibility,” he said.

The independent committee’s report found that the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit had failed in its duty to supervise renovation work at the estate.

The report also criticised the Fire Services Department, Buildings Department and Labour Department.

The government also announced it would introduce legislation criminalising bid-rigging and revamp the supervision of engineering and renovation contractors. A high-level steering committee led by the chief secretary will monitor the implementation of the reforms.

Another displaced resident, surnamed Yip and who previously lived in Wang Tai House, said the official apology could not make up for the government’s failure to prevent the blaze.

Yip, who lost his father and sister in the fire, said an apology was simply basic courtesy and respect.

“But this case involved 168 people losing their lives, not just people being injured,” the resident in his forties said. “Can the government simply carry on as before?”

Yip argued the government should have been more proactive in tackling problems linked to major building renovations and the interests behind them, which had long been known among the public.

“The government’s current reformed approach is just reactive,” he said. “It waits for something to happen and then optimises the system again.

Mabel Wong, a Wang Kin House resident in her thirties, also said the government’s apology was long overdue.

“If you truly believed you were at fault, why didn’t you apologise when the fire had just broken out? Why did you wait so long?” she said.

On planned institutional reforms, Wong said the problem was not a lack of laws or policies, but the failure to enforce them.

“The problem is not the rules themselves, but whether they are enforced. It is useless to announce policies if no one monitors them or ensures they are carried out,” she said.

“We complained that the workers at the construction site were smoking before. The inspector came and said they did not see anything. What is the use of having a law if it is not enforced?”

Chief Executive Lee previously said the government would pursue accountability once the committee concluded its work, stressing the response must be impartial, proportional and fact-based.

Other residents had mixed reactions to the government’s apology.

John Chan, who works in the finance industry, said he was “frustrated” by the response.

“The resignation of just one housing minister is not enough,” Chan said, adding that “after all this is about the lives of 168 people”.

Francis Ho, a retiree in his sixties, said apologies after the inferno might never be enough for survivors and victims’ families, but it was “still better than nothing”.

He hoped the lessons learned would be a step forward for the city to tackle the long-standing problem of bid-rigging and poor building maintenance.

“I hope the government can really learn from it and carry out long-term, deeper reform to prevent such tragedy from recurring,” he said.

Source: South China Morning Post