tim's experiment

Dear me. People who know Professor Anthony Cheung personally speak well of him. But it becomes increasingly clear that he is a square peg in a round hole as Secretary for Transport. It is not just that he knows very little about transport in general and large railway projects in particular. This knowledge is not expected in a political appointee. Indeed our CE is so short of bright friends that it is a relief to find a secretary with a degree. But Prof Cheung seems to have no idea what the job requires.

When he said that he was completely surprised by the news that the express railway was going to be two years late there remained only two possibilities. Either the good Professor had been sleeping through every meeting on the subject, or he was being, shall we say, economical with the truth. This is not a matter which requires a commission of inquiry to explore its depths. We evidently cannot trust the Secretary for Transport to keep even vaguely in touch with the flagship project of his branch. Or if he is in touch, we cannot trust him to tell us the truth about what is going on. End of story. No need for judges, experts etc. Prof Cheung should go. Indeed it seems that Prof Cheung himself came to the same conclusion and, as the SCMPost put it “tendered his resignation”, only to have it “rejected” by C.Y. Leung. Prof Cheung now says that he will resign (perhaps with more enthusiasm?) if one of the inquiries now exploring the delayed white elephant decides that he personally did something wrong.

This is not acceptable. The whole point of a ministerial system is that the minister is responsible for everything which happens in his department or branch. This is not based on the foolish notion that the minister is actually making all the decisions personally. When, if we may take a distant example, Lord Carrington resigned as Foreign Secretary at the outbreak of the Falklands War nobody supposed that His Lordship had been devoting a great deal of pre-war attention to relations with Argentina. He had the Cold War, the UN, the European Community, relations with Washington and such like to worry about. But if you are in charge you are in charge. If you cannot attend to a matter personally it is your responsibility to ensure that the underling in charge is able to do the job. This is what responsibility means. The Policy Secretary gets the fat salary, the big office, the personal car, and the invitation to the tunnel opening, at which he will no doubt be praised for his crucial role in bringing the project to a successful conclusion. In return he relinquishes the right, if something goes wrong, to say that it was not his fault because a subordinate erred.

Prof Cheung’s current line that he will resign if he is proven to have personally done something wrong is, accordingly, a cop-out. Secretaries are not judged by their personal contribution, but by results. If the results are not satisfactory the secretary has failed.

Prof Cheung is also misguided in supposing that a resignation, once made, can be “rejected”. If you want to go, nothing can stop your going. Of course if by “tendering your resignation” you mean you expressed a willingness to resign if asked to do so, then that is not a principled action at all. It is merely an attempt to get your face-saving description of the transaction in before you are fired, if you are fired. If Prof Cheung believes he should take responsibility, and resigns, that will be an example to all of how the system should work. If he believes that his Branch has lived up to its responsibilities and does not resign, then that is at least logical. Transferring the decision to the Chief Executive looks horribly like reaching for a politically-motivated lifebelt.