I focused on matters of livelihood, employment, investment and taxes that are of utmost importance to our people in my reply to the Policy Address, even though another issue needed urgent attention. Now in the leisure of an article I shall discuss what the Chief Executive may have in mind and what Hong Kong needs to effect an accountable administration, which everyone is for but no one in the government seems able or willing to deliver. Mr. Tung Chee-hwa has proposed the appointment of contract officials who would be designated "bureau directors" on directorate nine (D9) pay. Their stints would last as long as that of the Chief Executive at five years and subject to renewal. Acting as liaison between them and the Legislative Council and assisting them with their work would be an extra cadre of career civil servants, perhaps called "permanent undersecretaries", on directorate eight pay, which is the same as current bureau chiefs.

The Administration has justified the increase in bureaucracy as a means of making government accountable on the basis that contract officials can be dismissed but not career ones. Mr Tung believes this is the way to keep politics out of the administration . This proposed system is half a step forward but still nothing like what legislators envisage and can only entrench administrators' privileges without making them answerable for their performance.
The government, being conservative, is less incline to experiment. What legislators support is a system already functioning in established democracies. The British model, for one, works on the basis that government is legislative led. The Prime Minister has a mandate to form the government dominated by a Cabinet comprising senior members of the ruling party who then implement his policies the electors already knew when they voted in the new administration. Apolitical Whitehall career civil servants, known as "undersecretaries", cater for these ministers and implement their policies without fear or favor. Many legislators like the British system so deeply rooted in tradition and tested through years of trial and tribulation.

Some of my colleagues regret that the British never instituted such an effective governing arrangement before they quit and, instead, left behind a dysfunctional system in which the administration is often unaccountable and insulated from society. The gap between the government and the people is obvious in the latest reform proposal, which, if adopted, would increase civil service pay and perks at decreased work and responsibility. More civil servants, however they maybe remunerated and ranked, do not constitute good government. We already have a surplus of administrators and a deficit of accountability so apparent when the Chief Executive rebuffed legislators' vote for the removal of a housing official.

The alternative to the British model is the American one that is also rich in heritage. The United States elects the President who then appoints a Cabinet comprising not only members of his party subject to Congressional approval but individuals deemed to have succeeded in the private sector. In the current and immediately past American administrations the Presidents not only selected people best for the post, whatever their political affiliation, but also as an acknowledgement of the multicultural mix of the country and a gesture of equality between the genders. The Cabinet speaks for America literally and figuratively.

In both British and American systems the leader's choices are studied and their actions scrutinized by the elected assembly, the press, and their constituents. Prime Ministers and Presidents have no qualms about dismissing controversial or sub par Cabinet subordinates who have their own professions, businesses and, in Britain, back bench to fall back on. Their situation is unlike senior Hong Kong civil servants who, except for three chosen from the private sector, know no other work except bureaucracy and so have to hang on when honor requires that they go.

The Chief Executive has tried to change the culture of the civil service by introducing outsiders to its ranks only to meet with resistance. He has been forced to assign disgruntled veteran career civil servants to jobs with the various statutory bodies - called "quangos" in Britain - that should be staffed by private sector professionals. The system he is considering now may not ease the tensions in a civil service opposed to any change that endangers its interest even if it serves the public interest. I am worried that civil servants serve themselves and not the people who may be the last of their loyalties and the first to be betrayed.
Mr. Tung has to enroll more individuals from outside the civil service to discharge his responsibilities to the public. Hong Kong has plenty of talent and it would be folly of him not to include quality people in his confidence and Cabinet. Our community has succeeded because of the brains, diligence and commitment of the wider society rather than exclusively on the dedication of the civil servants. The community can lend expertise, drive and character to the administration, which has to reflect, rather than deflect, our hopes and dreams.

The Administration has perpetuated a dubious practice of telling the public how well the government is doing by submitting an annual report card citing its "successes". The grades are obviously inflated, as one would expect from students marking their own performances. I reckon a more honest assessment conducted by the people would be very damning.

There was one issue related to the civil service that I did touch on during my reply to the policy address. I said it was an irony for Singaporean civil servants to cut their salaries by 10% and our own to raise theirs by 4% in time of recession. We have been told not to question civil servants' benefits because that might sap their fragile morale but I am more concerned about the morale of the people suffering from failing businesses, unemployment, crushing mortgages and the prospect of a record budget deficit this year.

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