The Chief Executive Must Be Our Servant

Our servant? Our lord?(Apple Daily photo)

Second Opinion 8/3/2012
The Chief Executive Must Be Our Servant

There is only one aspiration that should drive those that intend to play a leading role in public life, and that is the desire to serve. Although, it is easy to understand why bright local graduates want to join our civil service, as the terms and conditions are pretty good, this is not sufficient to underpin a life long career. Integrity and selflessness are demanded, to a degree that few of us can attain.
In short, if you want to rise to the top of the organization and play a pivotal role in leading Hong Kong under its unique“ executive led” system, a sense of obligation and a deep rooted appreciation of the meaning of the“ servant” part of the phrase,“ civil servant”, is of paramount importance.

Additionally, as Donald Tsang recently discovered, the concept of service does not stop when the driver drops you off at your luxury, publicly owned, abode; service is not just part of your day job, rather you have to live and breathe it. Indeed, the impossibly high expectations of the public may even mean that your actions and attitudes will be scrutinized every minute of every day, even long after you have retired. If you don’ t think you can meet these standards don’ t get involved.
How you act is seen as a gauge of what you aspire to and what your real values are; actions, as they say, speak louder than words. So there is Donald Tsang who still does not understand why the public was dismayed by the revelations that he has been using private jets to go on holiday and was looking to live in a 6,200 square feet apartment on his retirement.
 
Well Donald it is easy. The average man in the street saw you as a humble god-fearing person who lived modestly and gave the impression of having taken on the role of Chief Executive for the good of Hong Kong. Yet they now seem to have discovered that this is not what you are like.
You seem to have a penchant for an opulent lifestyle, and that using the VIP facilities at the airport were not sufficiently grand for you, deeming it more appropriate to travel in a businessman’ s private jet for holidays.
 
Then, on top of this attempt to rise above the“ little people” you“ govern”, the choice of your post retirement abode screamed opulence and excess to people in Hong Kong who work day and night to get a bedroom for each of their children.
So, Donald, no one now knows who is that they are dealing with and by whom they have been governed by for the last few years. Are you the god-fearing servant of the people, who prays for guidance or someone who has found, as Lord Acton said that “ power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Whatever you do, and whatever you say, is now of no consequence.
 
You were put into power at the silent behest of the people to be their servant, while your aspirations as evidenced by your recent actions seem to be more in the nature of someone who has come to view himself as being their Lord.
 
And that is what poor old Henry Tang can’ t work out either. A very senior person in the business community and who has strong links into the administration started to try to explain to us at lunch the other day that Henry was only doing what everybody else in Kowloon Tong had done, depicting the area as a veritable rabbit warren of peeping toms leering at swimming pools.
 
This may well be the case, but when our most senior civil servant and the second most senior civil servant, the Chief Secretary, both get caught out in the space of a week or two something is rotten.
 
Henry seems unable to comprehend, just as his business friend at lunch was also unable to comprehend, that the idea of illegally stealing 2,500 square feet, worth maybe HKD 75 million on the open market, is anathema to a family who are spending their life paying for a 500 square feet flat.
 
And not only that, both Tsang and Tang have shown by their actions that not only do they have poor judgment but they have also shown that that they do not aspire to serve; rather they aspire to distance themselves from the people they claim to represent.




Stephen Brown is a director of the Civic Exchange, a Hong Kong-based think tank.
(Stephen Brown)