THE PRINCIPAL OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM
The Principal Officials Accountability System
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The Principal Officials Accountability system is ethic system guided with some moral principles in making people in the public offices be responsible for their mistakes or faults. The mistakes are indiscriminative since they are applied on the battlefield of politics to other fields. The system is mainly aimed at making public officials ‘pay’ for their gross misconduct in the field of politics through public pressure or governmental sanctions (Yan et al. 2017).
The paper will discuss the about the Principal Officials Accountability System (POAS) of Hong Kong which is one of the few nations to have adopted the system. The paper will also discuss how unique is the system in ensuring the accountability of the government officials and its achievement since its adoption.
The Principal Officials Accountability System was introduced in 2002 in Hong Kong in need to cure a serious problem of unaccountability by the public officials. The key word in the whole system is accountability which can be defined as a process of making a person answerable, responsible and able to accept sanctions after making grievous mistakes. In the system of accountability for principal officials in Hong Kong, there are some key things which were installed to ensure accountability for the officials. First, the officials are only entitled to remain in the office for a maximum period of years and not more than Chief Executive which appointed them. They are answerable to the Chief Executive which nominated them (Wong 2018). Their responsibility is overseeing the different duties assigned to them by the executive, overseeing duties of the associated departments, formulating different policies concerning their duties and marketing their policies and proposals to the government and the public for support (Yan et al. 2017). These are some of the contractual assignments and responsibilities that are given to the principals under the accountability system in Hong Kong.
To improve governance, the officials are included in the executive council. The main aim of including them in the executive council is to ensure that there is quick communication of decisions, creating agenda priorities and harmonizing work from different departments across the country (Lee 2017). All is done to ensure strong leadership and continuous overseeing of different projects and policies in Hong Kong.
Normally, any career office holder would wish to enjoy a full period of the contract unless any mistake happens during his or her service. The same happens to the employer who wants the office occupant to remain in the office for the set period and as well be responsible for the different duties, assets, and resources attached to the office. It is through such contractual mistrusts that an organization comes up with some managerial principals to tame irresponsibility and lack of accountability among the office holders. The organization comes up with different guidelines which the officers need to adhere to achieve the desired objectives of the organization without crossing the lines of accountability. It is such job commitments which made the government of Hong Kong come up with the Principal Officials Accountability system which makes the ministers accountable to their responsibilities and mistakes to the executive council which nominates them (Yan et al. 2017).
The idea behind the construction of the accountability system for the principal officers was the best. It had the whole matter at hand and would successfully wipe out the sense of unaccountability of the principal officers and misuse of the national officer positions. One of the major successes which were expected by the accountability system is that it could help the government in wiping out incompetent and unqualified officials. This is because the system allows the executive council to monitor the performance of the principal minister and thus keeping a close eye on any sense of misconduct of the principal officers. It is through strict accountability measures that the government Hong Kong can extend its developmental agendas without unnecessary wastage of the national resources on unqualified people and also people who cannot be accountable and responsible on their duties.
The second advantage of the system would be that the government departments would be better coordinated. The fact that the system gives room for the executive council to be the eye of the nation in appointing and charging the ministers with different responsibilities, the coordination between the cabinet and the executive would be improved. The close coordination would enhance sharing of the vision and hence having clear policy priorities. Whenever there is good coordination, the morale of the officials is improved, and thus the general performance of the cabinet is improved. These are some of the few benefits the accountability system for principal officials in Hong Kong was expected to bring the government’s leadership.
For the past years, more than fifteen, the accountability system for the Hong Kong ministers has proved to be limited in its main goal to make the principal officers responsible and accountable. Although the system came in with some advantages of ensuring accountability in the country’s main management zone, the system has in a big way failed in executing the difficult rulings which seem to be against the ministers of the government (Chan 2016).
The first limitation of the system is that it leaves the oversight mandate to the executive council. The principal officials are not accountable to the legislature or the public, and thus there is always a big chance of the executive betraying the country and abusing the accountability system. Centralizing the power to the executive council has proved to be a disaster to Hong Kong and its people. One of the major scandals surrounding the system is the “Cargate” scandal or the “Lexusgate”. Concerning the scandal, the principal secretary in the Department of Finance, Anthony Leung had bought a vehicle some weeks before he announced a tax hike on vehicle imports. Leung was being attacked to have tried to evade the new tax which would have cost him a whopping amount of money above the normal price (HK$50,000). This scandal attracted uproar in the country especially from the legislators and the public. Leung on his side argued that he wasn’t evading tax and vowed to pay the tax three times to the community charity. When the pressure from the public was too much, Anthony wrote a resignation letter. The chief executive officer by then, Tung Chee, who introduced the accountability system refused to accept the resignation letter from Leung. Tung accepted that Leung had broken the codes of conduct but argued that the minister did that with no intent. This is a failure of the system since the system doesn’t account for the mistakes done but the perceptions and friendly terms in the Exco (Mok 2017). Despite the public well knowing that what Leung did was wrong, the terminal apparatus to convict Leung was the Exco which sided with him in his misconduct. That is one of the main holes in the system.
The second limitation of the system is that it has no extra measures apart from the resignation of the principal officers. If at all losing an office could be the only way of punishing the unaccountable officers, then officers will be free to loot or be involved in any gross misconduct and resign from the office. Most of the officers who have been resigning have not been facing extra charges beyond delivering the resignation letters. In the multi-billion scandal of HK$97 billion of the MTR, most of the officers concerning the project just resigned without any other punitive measures of accountability. The CEO of the project Jay Walder among other officials of the project just resigned, and the government came up with new officials, even retaining the board f management. The fact that the rail lacked couplers meant that the concerned officials and engineers had grossly misused their offices to the extent of threatening the lives of the citizens. By just allowing them to resign and walk free, then who will pay for their misconduct? That is a big problem in the accountability system.
The other reason why the system is a failure to Hong Kong is that it is biased and depends on the decisions and perceptions of the chief executive officer of the council. At one time, Tung Chee was asked by the media at what point can he sack a principal officer. He boldly replied, “At my pleasure.” That means there are no strict guidelines on when an officer with gross misconduct should be forced to leave the office. That is seen when Mr. Tung openly protects Leung by saying that he cannot accept his resignation letter despite the proof that he was irresponsible in his duties. He also said that no public official should be forced to resign over the SARS attack in 2003. This is despite the government’s statement that it accepted to have acted slowly over the disaster. The minister of health by then, Yeoh Kiong solely resigned without the Exco forcing him to be accountable over the death caused by SARS and lack of enacting prevention policies to protect the citizens. The current Chief Executive Officer of the council, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-Ngor has also shown to be full of segregated accountability. Lam left the minister for transport, Frank Chan Fan to walk free of charge by claiming that he was kept in the dark over the MTR multi-billion scandal (Lee 2017). If at all the transport minister was in charge of the project, why didn’t he halt the project if he was at all kept in the dark? That proves that the Exco sacks the ministers at their pleasure and thus failing the system.
In conclusion, the system of accountability for principal officials in Hong Kong has greatly failed with most of the Hong Kong citizens rating it as a poor method of accountability. The power of making the officials accountable has been concentrated at the top leadership of the country, the Executive council. This has left out the public and the legislation and thus created a gap for misinterpreted judgments. The system has also not helped the country recover from every misconduct or financial misappropriation brought by the unaccountable officers. The principals are also appointed by the executive who opens a gap for friendship and biased relationship in ruling on their misconduct (Yan 2017). The accountability system of the principal officials is a failed system, and Hong Kong should be up to change the system and reverse the accountability exercise to the legislature, judiciary, and the public.
References
Lee, E. W., & Yeung, R. L. (2017). The “Principal Officials Accountability System”: its underdevelopment as a system of ministerial government. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 39(2), 120-134.
Chan, H. S., & Wing-ping, J. W. (2016). Building capacity: A framework for managing learning and development in the Hong Kong Police Force1. SHARPENING THE SWORD OF STATE, 67.
Wong, D. S., & Tu, K. H. (2018). Restorative justice for delinquents in Hong Kong: current practices and challenges. Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development, 28(3), 178-191.
Mok, K. H. (2017). Asserting Institutional Autonomy and Addressing Accountability: The Changing University Governance in Hong Kong. Mimeo (undated). At https://www. ln. edu. hk/rche/files/WPS_Working_Paper_on_University_Governance. pdf (accessed 22 November 2018).
Yan, M. C., Cheung, J. C. S., Tsui, M. S., & Chu, C. K. (2017). Examining the neoliberal discourse of accountability: The case of Hong Kong’s social service sector. International Social Work, 60(4), 976-989.