Nearly one-third of all public sector corruption reports filed were against Hong Kong Police, according to the Independent Commission Against Corruption's (ICAC) latest civilian review.

Chairman of the anti-graft body's Operations Review Committee Michael Sze revealed there were 313 complaints, a 13-percent rise in corruption reports filed against the police over the previous year.

In total, 951 reports were filed against all government departments during the first 11 months of 2010.

Sze said the commission was aware of serious cases involving police officers who were mixed up in drug trafficking, book making and shielding vice establishments, but added only a handful of officers were implicated and that none of them were command level personnel.

"There's no syndicated corruption or any sign of it. The fact there is none is testament to the fact that the ICAC is very vigilant. We have generally found petty corruption in the sense that people do not follow proper procedures or they sort of infringe on rules, (improperly filing for) overtime and that kind of thing," he said.

Although very small in number, the more serious cases would not be tolerated and have been pursed with the relevant departments, he said.

Most cases dealt with abuse of office, failure to exercise due diligence and indebtedness to loan sharks as common problems among civil servants, he said.

The total number of private sector complaints remained relatively unchanged at just over 2,000 cases, making up 63 percent of all complaints while public bodies complaints rose 12 percent to 212 cases with the total number of complaints dipping by 1 percent to 3,174 cases.

Private sector complaints relating to building management led the pack at 896 cases, followed by 147 cases for catering and entertainment and 111 cases involving finance and insurance companies where there were cases of collusion and deception in loan and credit facilities.

Calling Education services an emerging field vulnerable to corruption, Sze added there was an 8-percent increase in the number or reports with 97 cases recorded last year.

Chairman of the commission's advisory committee on corruption Laura Cha added 2010 was a good year for the ICAC, with Hong Kong ranking 13th worldwide according to Transparency International, ahead of Germany which ranked 15th and the US at 22nd place.

Moving forward, she said economic recovery presented external threats that would require more overseas collaboration while the monitoring of universities which receive taxpayer monies and donations along with the roughly 170 NGOs receiving more than HK$10 billion in subvention from the government should be tightened.

China Daily

(HK Edition 01/06/2011 page1)