On Thursday afternoon, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, together with seven officials, stood in silence and bowed in the ground-floor lecture hall of the Central Government Offices, apologizing to the public over the tragic Wang Fuk Court fire in Tai Po last November.

The resignation of Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho Wing-yin, tendered to take political accountability, was accepted; she ceased to hold office immediately, with Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun taking over the portfolio concurrently.

A public apology is the starting point of responsibility, but what the public truly needs are necessary structured reforms, which were announced right after the apology.

The report submitted by the Independent Committee was formed on the basis of 30 hearings, the summoning of 80 witnesses and a vast body of evidence. It concludes that the blaze most probably originated from a cigarette butt that ignited paper materials on the platform outside Units 104 and 105 of Wang Cheong Court, causing smoldering.

Workers smoking on site, the use of unsafe construction materials and the operation of fire service installations by unqualified people were all human failures confirmed by the report.

Yet the investigation also found regulatory deficiencies. The committee pointed out that the fire involved not only breaches of safety rules but also reflected long-standing deficiencies in the regulatory regime and a lax enforcement attitude; four government departments had for years failed to detect and handle the potential catastrophic fire risks of large-scale building maintenance works.

The report named the Buildings Department, the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit, the Fire Services Department and the Labour Department as all having deficiencies in supervision and enforcement, with departments adopting a “merry-go-round” approach when faced with complaints instead of resolving them jointly.

The main contractor, Prestige Construction & Engineering, and the engineering consultant, Will Power Architects were described as the “chief culprits”, but had the regulatory regime operated effectively, it could have corrected the improper conduct of the private parties before the fire broke out. This is precisely where the report is objective and fair: it did not simply pin responsibility on individuals, but honestly pointed to the deep-seated regulatory deficiencies.

While pursuing accountability, the government’s commitment in the aftermath should not be overlooked. After the fire broke out, the government activated a “whole-of-government mobilization” mechanism and established a “one household, one social worker” arrangement, mobilizing more than 1,000 personnel daily from the Police Force, the Housing Department, the Home Affairs Department, the Social Welfare Department, the Civil Aid Service and other departments to assist residents in returning to their units in batches to retrieve belongings.

Temporary accommodation, emergency allowances, psychological counseling, medical support and compassionate payments to the families of the deceased firefighter were also quickly put in place after the disaster. These details may not be earth-shattering, but they let the victims feel seen and respected amid their grief.

The strength of accountability is the key to judging whether the government is truly taking responsibility. This time, the handling has been advanced simultaneously on three levels: on criminal investigation, those involved have been charged; on political accountability, the resignation of the secretary for housing has been accepted; on administrative accountability, a two-tier investigation mechanism under the departmental heads’ responsibility system has been activated and referred to the Public Service Commission, to be completed within three months.

Compared with similar incidents in the past, the simultaneous pursuit of political and administrative accountability is rare in its intensity, and responds to society’s expectation of “accountability to the end”.

What truly deserves recognition is that the government has not stopped at apology and accountability. The report puts forward 120 recommendations covering investigation and enforcement, building maintenance supervision, fire safety, support for owners, departmental coordination, and accountability mechanisms. On this basis, the government has launched five areas of systemic reform:

First, bid-rigging in building maintenance works will be made a criminal offense and incorporated into the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance, with a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment and a HK$10 million ($1.27 million) fine, and an interdepartmental task force comprising the Police, the ICAC and the Competition Commission will be set up to take proactive enforcement action.

Second, a Building Maintenance Support and Service Council will be established, in the form of a company wholly owned by the Financial Secretary Inc, to complete registration by the end of the year and provide tender support to owners from the first quarter of next year, aiming at self-financing in the long run.

Third, the Buildings Ordinance will be amended to substantially raise penalties, with the maximum fine for contractors using defective or noncompliant materials increased to HK$5 million. Furthermore, to maximize deterrence against the root causes of maintenance fraud, the government is introducing separate criminal offenses under the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance, capping maximum fines for bid-rigging and anti-competitive cartel conduct at a staggering HK$10 million along with 10 years’ imprisonment.

Fourth, the internal structure of the Housing Bureau will be reformed, with a brand-new Public Housing Building Control Section replacing the disgraced Independent Checking Unit during November to rationalize and overhaul regulatory responsibilities over public and subsidized housing maintenance.

Fifth, a steering committee led by the chief secretary for administration will oversee the implementation of the reforms.

The common thrust of these measures is to cut off the chain of interests that has long attached itself to building maintenance and to shift the regulatory model from reliance on industry self-discipline to proactive government action.

The value of the report lies in its refusal to reduce the tragedy to a single fault, and in its insistence on forcing the entire regulatory system to confront those loopholes.

The reform measures have been listed and the steering committee established; what will be tested next is the willpower to implement them and sustained oversight. While remembering the pain, all sectors of society should also support the government in translating these 120 recommendations into reality one by one, pooling consensus and moving forward in unity, so that the government can concentrate on pursuing economic development, planning for growth and resolving deep-seated contradictions, and promote Hong Kong’s high-quality development because the best consolation for the deceased is not a moment of guilt, but a system that will never let a similar tragedy happen again.

The author is a law professor, president of the Association for the Promotion of Rule of Law, Education and Technologies and vice-president of the Hong Kong Basic Law Education Association

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.