Piling Scandal and Organizational Culture

On June 28, 2000, lawmakers passed the vote of non-confidence in the two top officials in order to hold them for the piling scandal.

In these several months, the Housing authority has been under tremendous pressures from the public criticism when the sinking piles in Shan Tin and Tin Shui Wai are discovered. She has been criticized to fail in monitoring construction companies. During this period, it has also been exposed that the staff of housing authority and private developers make illegal deals in sacrifice of the quality of public rental housing. Besides, the Housing Authority has undergone an independent investigation into the cases of sinking piles and recently announced that the problem of sinking piles in Shan Tin and Tin Shui Wa is too serious to shelter people. 

No doubt the public are dissatisfied with the wrongdoings of the Housing Authority. To make it worse, the legislative councilors and the interest groups incessantly criticize the Housing Authority and even press the chairwoman of Housing Authority and the director of Housing to resign. Under this situation, it seems that all the citizen unanimously want to punish the wrongdoers.

In the current political atmosphere, the politicians attempt to find out who should be held responsible for "the failure of monitoring the construction". The heads of the Housing Authority and the Housing Department in turn become the target of criticism because they are labeled as an incapable civil servant who fails to provide a good quality public housing. This mentality is fully reflected in the words of a spokesman for the Chinese Civil Servants' Association that the government should carry out an in-depth investigation into the incident and spot out who should be held responsible for a series of piling scandals. As the Housing Authority is an agent for providing a decent and affordable housing in serving low and middle income group of people, the heads of Housing Authority should do something to appease the "public" dissatisfaction.

The Chief Executive, however, is very dissatisfied with the current public attitude that the government should find a scapegoat to blame because it is not a right way to tackle institutional problems underlying in the building scandal. And also the Chief Secretary of Administration and Secretary of Housing express that pressing the heads of the Housing Authority to resign cannot solve real problems. On the contrary, this only hinders the government from launching housing reforms as the government loses the experienced civil servants. More importantly, the undercurrent of reform resistance will gain the momentum to obstruct the pace of housing reform. 

What is the aim of the current housing reform? The housing reform focuses on both the structure and the operational levels. On the structure level, the responsibilities of Housing Authorities, Housing Department, Housing Bureau and Housing Society should be reformulated to reduce the job overlapping and the interest of conflicts. On the operational level, the mechanism of monitoring housing production should be reformed or built up in improving the quality of public housing. Besides, the efficiency of the housing production should be heightened through subcontracting out some unimportant tasks to the private sector.

It is heard from the news that the building scandal can be attributed to the working culture in the Housing Authority. What is it? Different people have different interpretations on "working culture". I try to use some quotations to show working cultures in the Housing Authority. " It is too expensive to adopt this design of building facade although it looks very beautiful." "You only need to pay a below market rent for a big flat. Still you are  so picky to choose a good one in terms of building year or location!" "You cannot demand too much. If you think the public housing is poor in quality, you can buy a private flat." This mentality may imply that the aim of public rental housing is not to construct a comfortable and good quality housing for the poor.