tim's experiment

We do seem to get a lot of apologies these days. Up last week was Mr Donald Tsang apologising — again — for his expensive taste in publicly-funded hotel accomodation. Well OK, we probably ought to let that one go. There is no point in him resigning with a few weeks left. Mr Tsang should be allowed to shuffle quietly towards the scrapheap, apology accepted, sins (if there is nothing else in the closet) forgiven.

He should, though, tell his underlings to stop providing defensive bulletins on his behalf. Hot on the heels of the apology came an offering from the private office of the Chief Executive, to the effect that Mr Tsang was not really to blame because he did not book the hotel rooms himself. This is probably the limpest apology for an excuse ever to hit Hong Kong newsprint.

There are two things which can be said in Mr Tsang’s defence. One is that he really does need a suite. Not necessarily the best one in the house, but some sort of suite. I have been urging future reporters for 30 years to avoid at all costs interviewing contacts in hotel bedrooms. Of course most of the time nothing will happen but this is asking for trouble. There is something about being in a small room with a bed and a young lady which brings out the Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a man. I was not impressed by the suggestion that Mr Tsang’s refined taste in rooms was a necessary consequence of his exalted rank, but clearly we cannot have the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR meeting people in a hotel coffee shop.

The second thing which can be said is that Mr Tsang was continuing a long tradition of extravagance and greed which goes back into the Colonial era. Senior civil servants in Hong Kong were for many years in the happy position of deciding their own remuneration and terms of service. The results were predictably generous. So senior types have palaces on the Peak and fleets of servants, justified by their “need to entertain”, cars which are supposed to be for public purposes are misapplied to transporting bigwigs to work, policy secretaries have personal assistants, personal secretaries, personal toilets and what have you. I remember in the 80s it was discovered that if you were really senior you could retire, collect your farewell pile of gold and pension, and then carry on working at the same salary, thus being effectively paid twice. Our senior civil servants vie with those of Singapore for the title of most conspicuously overpaid in the world. Mr Obama leads the free world on a comparative pittance. Mr Tsang’s extravagance is perhaps unreasonable, but also very traditional.

On the other hand the idea that he did not know what was going on is totally untenable. This might work if the problem had only happened once. But in 40-odd overseas trips it cannot have escaped Mr Tsang’s notice that the accommodation he was staying in was really rather nice and no doubt commensurately expensive. A word from him would have been enough to inaugurate a more parsimonious policy. Qui tacet consentire videtor, as the lawyers used to say– he who says nothing will be taken to agree.

Actually I hope the next CE will seriously consider how many of these trips are really necessary. Hong Kong has a Trade Development Council to inform and attract overseas investors. We are not allowed our own foreign policy. And if he must go, can we at least have an end to the preposterous nonsense of sending an advance party to make arrangements? I understand the need for the CE to have a few underlings with him. Like the emperor in a Cantonese Opera he needs a couple of “fragrant flowers” behind him as a mark of rank. But there is no need for the preparatory trip. A travelling CE is not a circus.