Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session before the Executive Council meeting this morning (August 21):
Reporter: Will the Government consider upping regulations for contractors, seeing how, in the MTR projects, contractors such as Leighton have not been co-operating with the investigation following disclosure of scandals, and also the M+ project?
Chief Executive: Well, first of all, let me say that the Government takes it very seriously about the quality, the professionalism and the integrity of our capital works contractors. As I have said, following the incidents concerning the Shatin to Central Link, we will take follow-up action in a very serious and comprehensive manner, so where contractors belong to our list of contractors – they are recognised and admitted into a list of contractors for tendering government projects – we have what we call regulatory actions and these actions are undertaken by the Development Bureau. I understand that they have been following up very diligently, and as soon as we are in the position to announce the regulatory actions that we are going to take with regard to some of these contractors, we will certainly announce it in public.
Reporter: Mrs Lam, the independence advocate Chan Ho-tin has urged the US President Donald Trump to, you know, review the Hong Kong-US Policy Act and also to kick China and Hong Kong out of the WTO. Do you think that his action is appropriate?
Chief Executive: Of course such action is not appropriate and just describing it as inappropriate perhaps has not reflected the public outcry and anger with that sort of actions. Whether you support "One Country, Two Systems" or you don't, living in Hong Kong, I think everybody should take the interests of Hong Kong into heart. So, for somebody to advocate that a foreign government should penalise or punish Hong Kong is really, I just don't know what sort of adjectives to use to describe this sort of actions. But I notice that many people in society, including those which are normally very moderate commentators, said that this sort of actions should never have happened in Hong Kong. So I think the strong sentiments have been expressed by members of the public and I can only say that this is deeply regretted and, as I said, I don't think any sensible, reasonable person in Hong Kong will condone that sort of activities.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
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