Govt accused of doxxing stadium scandal reporters

In another blow for Hong Kong press freedom, the government is accused of doxxing investigative reporters who were exposing corruption and corner-cutting at the Kai Tak Stadium and Kwong Wah Hospital projects.

Reporters at HK01 say they have been outed in public, with screenshots of their inquiry emails to government departments released online and screenshots of their resumes and photos widely circulated on social media. They’ve already been targeted with a slew of unwanted messages.

The reporters say inquiries to Hospital Authority were directly shared on some non-governmental WhatsApp groups, while other inquiries to Hospital Authority and the Cultural Sports & Tourism Bureau were leaked in other chat groups. Some of those inquiries had also been sent to the contractor involved, Shun Cheong, so the government isn’t the only culprit here, but certainly Hospital Authority has played fast and loose with sensitive information and the patterns exposed by HK01 appear to be an orchestrated attack from the parties accused of wrong-doing.

English-language media doesn’t seem to have picked up on the full glory of the original investigation which is a shame because full of outrageous corruption and even has a nice link to pop star Eason Chan.

HK01 reporters tested the coating thickness at hundreds of locations at Kwong Wah Hospital and Kai Tak Stadium, finding standards well below the contracted quality

Reporters found cable trunkings at Kwong Wah Hospital and Kai Tak Stadium failed not only contracted quality standards but also the British Standards stamped upon them, revealing a potential criminal fraud case.

HK01 estimates the contractors saved around $10 million in each project by supplying this lower-quality trunking. The cheaper stuff has lower corrosion resistance and will cause these shiny new buildings to age prematurely: anyone who’s visited a “brand new” government building and wondered why it already looks 40 years old, this sort of thing is partly to blame.

As usual, nobody except some sharp-eyed reporters noticed the problem, because, as usual, government officials allegedly didn’t actually check the quality of the materials, they just scanned over the paperwork, shrugged and gave it a thumbs-up. It’s the same in almost every aspect of building safety, labour safety or construction safety in the city. Photoshopping a British Standard, chop or signature onto government paperwork is really a basic criminal skill in Hong Kong these days.

Oh, and the Eason Chan link? Eason Chan’s father, Chan Kau-tai, a former Housing Authority boss, was at the centre of a $3 million bribery case involving the trunking contractor Shun Cheong, back in 2004. Chan senior was jailed for seven years in 2004 for accepting bribes and giving plum contracts to Shun Cheong. Shun Cheong, of course, continues to enjoy plum government contracts…

HK01’s reporting team is to be highly commended for the investigation. It’s the sort of story Transit Jam would have been very proud to find: I always believed the smallest stuff pulled the biggest threads. Here we have a micron-level discrepancy in the thickness of a zinc coating in some humble cable trunking exposing a potentially massive chain of corruption at two major bureaux and big-name developers including New World.

But for all HK01’s great work, we should be appalled that the quality control in these major government projects is left to journalists, and even more appalled that those journalists have been doxxed by the government for asking the difficult questions.

Doxxing could well be a fresh tactic of the government, and I say this as a journalist recently doxxed in state media for asking difficult questions.

That's a chilling thought. Reporters in Hong Kong are familiar with the stonewalling, lying and misdirection of our officials. We’re even becoming familiar with National Security red lines, as far as these can be determined. But public doxxing signifies a return of the era when, as in so many corrupt countries, we’re not actually physically safe to ask questions.

When a government and its corrupt contractors can sic their friends in the triad community on those they wish to silence, the choppings and beatings can’t be far behind.