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With regard to the Director of Audit's report issued today (May 31) on the hotel accommodation arrangements for the Chief Executive's duty visits outside Hong Kong, the Chief Executive's Office made the following response:
We thank the Audit Commission for the prompt completion of the review and its recommendations to improve the accommodation arrangements for the Chief Executive's duty visits.
We agree with the broad principles as confirmed in the report, i.e. that the arrangement of accommodation should on the one hand have regard to the "moderate and conservative" principle on the use of government funds, and should on the other hand reflect credibly the position of the Chief Executive as head of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as well as the status of Hong Kong in the international arena.
As the report has pointed out, the current arrangements have room for improvement. In this connection, the report has put forward a number of recommendations to tighten the planning and approval process. It has suggested, inter alia, the formulation of internal guidelines, more thorough assessment on the different classes of accommodation and proactive disclosure of duty visit expenditure. We generally accept the recommendations.
As the recommendations in the report will affect the accommodation arrangements for the Chief Executive's duty visits in future, we have forwarded the report to the Office of the Chief Executive-elect for reference.
Ends/Thursday, May 31, 2012
Issued at HKT 11:38
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