Govt departments share blame for Wang Fuk fire

An independent committee looking into the Wang Fuk Court fire on Thursday concluded that government regulators must share responsibility for the high death toll in the Wang Fuk Court fire, finding that private-sector misconduct was compounded by decades of official failure, regulatory loopholes and “slack enforcement”. The committee concluded that had officials handled residents’ complaints properly and worked with a sense of crisis about facade fires on occupied renovation sites, private wrongdoing and site hazards “could have been rectified or removed before the fire.” Lax enforcement, it said, “inevitably” breeds lax private-sector performance. The government bodies identified “should bear part of the responsibility for the high casualties”. "Had the staff of the various government bodies handled the complaints properly and done their works seriously given the possible tragic consequences of fire in the building maintenance and repair sites, there was a real possibility that the misconduct of the private-sector parties and the fire hazards in Wang Fuk Court could have been rectified or removed before the fire," it said. It found the Buildings Department (BD) and the Independent Checking Unit (ICU) primarily responsible for failed supervision of the Wang Fuk Court works. The failings were “systemic and multi-layered,” spanning policy design and...