Gov’t cultural fund member probed

The president of the Cultural Industries Fund’s Administrative Committee Fund, Leong Heng Teng, denied media claims that the fund’s mechanism might have loopholes, in the wake of a suspected case involving its members.
“Are there loopholes in the mechanism? No. The mechanism is strict. All of the committee members who should do interest avoidance have done it,” Leong Heng Teng told TDM.
The committee head declined to make further comments on the case, citing that it was just an isolated incident, which has not yet been verified. He also stressed that the grants were under strict protection against any illicit favor transfer, but that there was still room for improvement. The 67-year-old likewise claimed that the initial investigation conducted by the Secretariat for Social Affairs and Culture’s office was no more than a “preliminary investigation” and not a disciplinary procedure.
A member at the managerial level from the fund committee is allegedly involved in favorable allocation of funds to a company  owned by his direct family members. Secretary Alexis Tam later confirmed the allegation on the sidelines of an event, adding that a probe was underway. It was said that the government official involved in the scandal has been allowed to keep his post for now. The fund has been launched for a year, with a total of 86 approved applications from the city’s cultural sector, amounting to a MOP110 million. The Cultural Industries Fund has MOP200 million available for cultural projects.
During a session of the fund’s administrative committee, Leong Heng Teng said that the independent committee assesses applicants fairly. Applications for grants involving more than MOP500,000 thousand have to be passed to the “trust committee” for decisions.
However, some applicants of the fund claimed that the assessment process is not fair or transparent, and that there is no clear standard on who should receive grants. “Our achievements have been spoken highly of, overseas, but the fund gave us a very low score. This is really discouraging,” said Conchita Vong, CEO of Connoisseurs Society of China Art. Leong Heng Teng revealed that he cannot comment on individual cases as he has no detailed information about them.