Government gives its views on primary causes of Tai Po fire

The Independent Committee on Wang Fuk Court fire held the second session of its final hearings, with conclusions submitted by lawyers representing residents, the government, and the committee.

The government's submission noted that the primary causes remained the deceit, inaction and deliberate omissions of private actors.

The submission also pointed out the financial issues involved. Since the potential gain from abuse vastly exceeds the cost of compliance and risk of sanction, the actors are inclined to abuse the system rather than to comply with it, causing the entire system of mutual checks to cease functioning and the regulatory framework to be weakened.

It further highlighted five systemic issues that need to be improved, including the internal communication between the Buildings Department and the Independent Checking Unit (ICU) of the Housing Bureau, as well as the inadequacy of audit-checks mechanisms operates on statistical sampling based with rate.

However, the government stressed that it had already proactively introduced multiple improvements promptly after the fire.