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Sherry Lee

The government's failure to keep records on fung shui compensation payouts has come under fire  from former archives officials who say it violates the administration's rules. 
They say that the absence of proper fung shui compensation records also infringes the Code on Access to Information,  which guarantees transparency and accountability.
The government's Records Management Manual,  made mandatory in April 2009, states: 'Records should be created and collected to meet operational, policy, legal and financial purposes', and 'records should be identifiable, retrievable, accessible and available as needed'.
Former director of the Government Records Service, Simon Chu Fook-keung,  now a member of  the Archives Action Group,  said: 'Under the guideline, bureaus and departments should have no excuse for not  creating and keeping records of their official activities.'
Chu's criticism comes after four government departments failed to  disclose how much they had spent on fung shui compensation works. The Sunday Morning Post  earlier revealed at least HK$72 million of public money has been spent on fung shui compensation - a figure believed to be the tip of a very big iceberg. 
The Lands Department said  it does not have records of  fung shui compensation spending, saying it only  has figures for ex-gratia tun fu ritual payments. 
Both the Civil Engineering and Development and Drainage Services departments said they don't keep a database on fung shui costs. The Highways Department said it has no category for fung shui compensation.  
Also, the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corp's chief officer James Blake  -  a former secretary for works - said   records of fung shui payouts  for the West Rail and Lok Ma Chau Spur Line had been 'properly disposed of'.
'It is  impossible for them not to create records for fung shui payments if indeed payments for this category have actually been made. They are trying to hide something from the public,' Chu said.
A Government Records Service spokesman said  it does not have fung shui records from any bureaus  or departments.  And it 'has not received any report of loss or unauthorised destruction of government records' from the four departments, he said. 
A spokeswoman for the Lands, Highways, Civil Engineering and Development and Drainage Services departments would not comment on any alleged guideline violations. 
A government spokesman for  Director  of Administration Jennifer Mak Yee-ming, who oversees  the records service and the guideline, would not give a direct answer when asked if the departments had breached the guideline. 
'Responsibilities for proper management of government records are shared between bureaus and departments that create and collect records,' she said, adding that non-compliance to the guideline could result in disciplinary action.
But Chu said the guideline is not legally binding, so authorities simply ignore it. 'The director of the Government Records Service can do nothing about this,' he said. 
Don Brech, who set up the records service in 1989, said it has no power to enforce the guideline. 'We don't know whether records were created and maintained in departments and bureaus. The GRS has no right to inspect records at departments and no right to audit. Therefore, there is no method of enforcing the administrative guideline,' he said. 
Retired High Court judge William Waung Sik-ying, now adjunct professor  with the Chinese University of Hong Kong's law faculty, said the lack of transparency on fung shui payouts indicated a need for legislation.
'With archives legislation, such alleged 'disposal' of fung shui records would not be possible, and if it did happen, then the  officials involved would be prosecuted and would probably go to jail,' Waung said.
Under archives laws in place overseas, government departments and publicly funded bodies are deemed to have committed a criminal offence by not creating or maintaining proper public records, he said. And it is also a crime to prevent public access to government records, he added.
Such legislation, which safeguards freedom of information, exists in many Western countries, including the United States, Australia and New Zealand, as well as  in Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Korea and Macau.  'Hong Kong is unbelievably backwards in terms of not having an archives law,' Waung said. 
In February 2009, Waung, Chu, Brech, lawmaker Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee  and others formed the Archives Action Group to push for archives legislation. They drafted a Public Records Bill  to bind government and publicly funded bodies to create and maintain proper public records, and allow public access.
But a government spokesman said such a law was not needed. 'The general principles of records management enshrined in archival legislation have in fact been implemented in Hong Kong through administrative measures,' he said.




Record-keeping on fung shui payouts under fire