A lawmaker has pledged to keep chasing details of how much police spend on entertaining mainland officials after the security chief gave figures showing a 30 per cent increase in entertainment expenses in the past five years, but with no breakdown.
James To Kun-sun said that without a breakdown, fears remained of a new scandal like that surrounding former chief graft-buster Timothy Tong Hin-ming.
Lawmakers heard that as well as the 30 per cent rise in entertainment payments, police recorded a 60 per cent rise in the cost of duty visits.
It came against a background of a general rise in such expenses by all the disciplined services.
The figures, in a written reply from Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok to a question from To, show the force spent HK$2,637,000 on entertainment in the 2012-13 financial year, up 30 per cent from the HK$2,008,000 in 2008-09.
It spent HK$11,332,000 on duty visits in the last financial year, up 63 per cent from HK$6,928,000 five years ago.
