The Chief Executive (CE) Chui Sai On is one of the local figures mentioned in the “leakage” of confidential data related to offshore connections. The so-called “Bahamas Leaks” refers to the CE, Chui’s brother and lawmaker Chui Sai Cheong in connection to a company named Yee Shing International. The company is referred to as a “ghost company,” and its headquarters are said to be in the British Virgin Islands.
The two members of the Chui family are mentioned as being former directors of the company, a subsidiary of Hopewell Holdings Limited, a Hong Kong based and listed infrastructure and property firm founded and headed by Gordon Wu in 1972.
The connection was first established by the neighboring media website HK01, citing documents leaked from offshore companies registered in the Bahamas between 1990 and 2016.
The company was involved in several local real estate projects, namely the Nova Taipa and Nova City developments, among many others in Hong Kong and on the Pearl River Delta such as the expressway, tunnel and bridge projects in the four toll expressway Guangzhou-Shenzhen Superhighway, Phases I, II and III of the Western Delta Route.
Chui Sai On was reportedly director of the company for a period of two years in between 1997 and 1999, before taking office as Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture.
As for the CE’s brother, Chui Sai Cheong, one of the founding members of the company, the connection lasted far longer and is controversial due to the fact that Cheong has been a lawmaker since the handover in 1999, and was therefore obliged to declare his position as director of Yee Shing International on his declaration of assets and interests – which he allegedly failed to do, according to HK01.
In comments to Chinese language newspaper Macao Daily News last Saturday, Cheong explained that he had resigned from the position [as director] in July 2012 and that the legal regime of declaration of assets and interests only came into effect in 2013, in this way justifying that he was not obliged to declare his assets and interests prior to the new law.
The “Bahamas Leaks” released 1.3 million internal files from the company register of the Bahamas, one of the world’s most notorious tax paradises.
The data has brought to light details of the financial interests of politicians, entrepreneurs, financiers – and fraudsters just five months after the release of the “Panama Papers.”
The information was first received by German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, and then shared with the public in a Bahamas leaks database, established by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the same organization that initially revealed the Panama Papers. RM
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