29th October 2026 – (Hong Kong) Chief Executive John Lee, pressed on whether Housing Secretary Winnie Ho’s solo resignation can satisfy the public after the Wang Fuk Court report, said the choice was his personal political decision.
The independent committee today named failings at the Housing Department’s Independent Checking Unit, the Buildings Department, the Fire Services Department and the Labour Department. Among the policy bureaux over them, only Ms Ho has quit. Mr Lee was repeatedly asked why Security Secretary Tang Ping-keung, Development Secretary Bernadette Linn and Labour and Welfare Secretary Chris Sun need not step down. He said the blaze fell within the Independent Checking Unit’s remit under the Housing Bureau, and that the other secretaries must “continue” in post to push a large reform programme. “This time I weighed every factor and made this political decision — it is my personal political decision,” he said.
Ms Ho tendered her resignation after the report’s release, saying she was willing to take responsibility. Mr Lee has accepted it; her duties cease from today, with Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong taking on the housing portfolio concurrently. Asked whether, by mainland accident-accountability standards, stopping at bureau-secretary level was too low, Mr Lee replied that Hong Kong has its own accountability system and that the decision balanced factors that had to be weighed across several fields.
At the briefing he answered for the three secretaries, saying the allocation of political responsibility among his politically appointed team had weighed officials’ roles, how closely their policy remits touched the disaster, whether problems were of policy or of execution, how subordinates performed, and the volume of work still ahead. Although he did not attribute personal wrongdoing to the housing chief, he judged she should still bear political responsibility because the fire occurred in the Independent Checking Unit’s area. The three other secretaries answer to him, he said, and must follow his political decision and the demands he has set.
Those demands are that the political team throw itself into reforms and the heavy workload ahead in each post, learn the lessons, lead more strongly and deepen a results-oriented style of governing. Asked again why the others faced no matching sanction, he said: “I have again restated my overall considerations — better I leave more time for other questions.” He repeated that political accountability this time followed a balanced weighing of every relevant factor.
Results-oriented government, he added, is a long cultural reform with no final ceiling — only the drive to do better — and the failings this time should not erase the work of diligent civil servants who serve the community wholeheartedly. On whether the public is satisfied with the accountability package, he declined to comment, saying each person may hold a political view. “With one conviction: do what should be done, do it swiftly, and see it through,” he said, noting that many people are involved and that cultural change since he took office still has a long road ahead. As the conference closed, reporters asked whether the three secretaries were under a gag order and whether silence was responsible towards survivors; none of the three replied.