Watchdog To Probe Work To Curb Public Housing Abuse

Ombudsman Winnie Chiu announced on Thursday that her office is probing the government's efforts to combat abuse of public housing resources.

The watchdog will look into how the Housing Authority, Housing Department and Housing Society follow up on suspected cases of abuse, and their procedures for recovering flats from tenants who don't meet the criteria to live in them.

The direct investigation will also cover the authorities' monitoring of flat usage and their checks on tenants' declarations regarding income and assets.

"There should be a practical mechanism and measures for the department and the society to effectively detect and curb public rental housing abuse, so as to ensure that public housing resources are allocated and utilised in a fair and reasonable manner," Chiu said in a statement.

The Ombudsman said her team will make recommendations for improvements where needed.

Housing minister Winnie Ho said her team will fully cooperate with the probe.

She added that an internal review of the relevant work has already been carried out and ways to improve things have been identified.

The Federation of Public Housing Estates welcomed the Ombudsman's probe, saying abuse of the system is not acceptable and it looks forward to ideas on improving the situation.

The federation's executive director, Anthony Chiu, said the authorities have manpower shortages that make their work difficult.

"If the probe can subjectively reflect the things that the authorities can improve on, we would welcome that," he told RTHK.

"But we also hope the public can understand the difficulties faced by the authorities, things they need to overcome. We hope the public can know this through the [investigation]."