Hong Kong leader vows accountability over faulty lifts at Queen Mary Hospital

Hong Kong authorities will hold construction firms and government personnel accountable for faulty lift installation work at Queen Mary Hospital’s new block, the city’s leader has said, as he tasked the Development Bureau with submitting a report within a month.Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said on Tuesday that he had instructed the bureau, which had given him a preliminary briefing, to “thoroughly investigate the matter and report within a month”.“We will pursue accountability, including contractors, subcontractors, engineering personnel and professionals. And if there are government personnel involved, we will pursue their accountability as well,” he said ahead of his meeting with the Executive Council. “We also need to identify where and whether the system has any inadequacies and rectify them.“To consider what further action we will do, we must first find very clearly about what happened, where are the inadequacies, and whether any person who should be held accountable, we should pursue their accountability. After we have found out the facts, then we will decide what further steps we shall take.”Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu says contractors, professionals and government staff could face action over the lift defects. Photo: Karma LoLee’s comments came a month after defective work at the hospital – the largest on Hong Kong Island – came under scrutiny, with 24 of the 28 lifts in its new 34-storey clinical block deemed unfit for use.Sources previously told the South China Morning Post that Li Pak-yee, a chief project manager at the Architectural Services Department who oversaw the development, had been asked to resign and left her post over the scandal.The department denied that there had been any “forced resignation”, saying Li had quit for “personal reasons” after giving three months’ notice.Lee did not directly address the SCMP’s questions about whether the resignation would affect the investigation and why the government had not invoked its “Heads of Department Accountability System”, proposed in his policy address last year to improve governance.