Former Hong Kong minister Anthony Cheung reveals he twice considered resigning over controversial high-speed rail link

Hong Kong’s former transport chief Anthony Cheung Bing-leung has revealed that he had twice considered resigning amid delays and budget overruns at the contentious HK$84.4 billion cross-border high-speed rail link.

In an interview with the Post about major controversies faced by the last government, Cheung, the former secretary for transport and housing, also said that it was civil servants, rather than a Democratic Party lawmaker as widely believed, who brought a lead-in-water scandal into focus.

Many major incidents, including ride-hailing firm Uber’s failure to get permission to operate in the city, are discussed in Cheung’s two latest Chinese-language books which look at his five years in government, with one on housing and the other on transport.

Cheung, who returned to academia after leaving the government last year, also wrote that he did not expect to be handling transport policies, as he was first invited by then chief executive Leung Chun-ying to join his administration as head of a “housing, planning and lands bureau” under a proposed government restructuring. But the Legislative Council did not pass the restructuring plan.