“illegal recruitment” not related to transfer of benefits or other illegal activities

The new director of Cultural Affairs Bureau (ICM) Leung Hio Ming claimed during a press conference yesterday that the case of recruiting a large number of staff via a regime of acquisition of services was not related to any transfer of benefits or other illegal activities.
The ICM head added that the method of recruitment by the IC had long been a norm during his administrative career since the previous Portuguese administration.
“We didn’t find any chiefs or leaders who violated the law intentionally in our investigations,” said the ICM head.
In the press conference yesterday, ICM responded to the investigation report posted last month by the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC), which slammed ICM for using illegal methods to recruit a large number of its workers, some of whom are even relatives of leaders and department chiefs.
When asked by reporters whether any chiefs or heads of departments should bear any legal responsibility, Mr. Leung stressed that it was due to a failure of staff from all departments and ranks to follow regulations.
The report, written by the anti-graft watchdog, covers the years 2010 to 2015.
ICM was headed by Guilherme Ung Vai Meng from March 2010 until the middle of February, when he left the position to “return to the world of arts”, a month before the announcement of the watchdog’s report.
The current ICM director admitted that many chiefs and frontline staff, including himself, have limited knowledge about recruitment procedures, justifying that staff paid more attention to the commencement and outcomes of events held by the Bureau.
But he emphasised that the issues must be resolved and improvements must be made for future works.

82 still working in ICM
According to CCAC, the number of workers recruited by the Bureau via a regime of acquisition of services, reached one sixth of the department’s total recruits in 2014, at 112, with the number dropping to 94 in 2016 when CCAC commenced its investigations into the Bureau.
Currently, there are 82 employees who were hired via acquisition of service still working for the Bureau.
The Bureau stated that contracts of related employees will be terminated commencing the end of June, saying that “up to some three quarters of the hired employees [via acquisition of service] will have their contracts terminated by the end of the third quarter this year”.
The given time span was considered as a buffer for ICM to restructure and to allow time for soon-to-be-sacked employees to plan their next steps.
Aside from terminating the contracts of the other related workers, Mr. Leung said staff had already made declarations of their assets, as requested by CCAC.
To prevent similar problems in the future, the ICM head disclosed that training of staff regarding legal procedures such as procurement law, was being held to strengthen staff knowledge of the local law, as well as to emphasise the importance of abiding by it, adding that similar training will continue to be held in the future.
Meanwhile, the annual report compiled by CCAC released earlier this month, exposed another case of inappropriate recruitment by ICM, of two supervisors who had less than five years of experience.
Mr. Leung explained that the aforementioned case was the result of the Bureau’s miscomprehension of some of the legal terms, while apologising for the negative impact created for its superiors.