The tragic Wang Fuk Court blaze, which brought immense pain and profound loss, is a shared grief carried by everyone in Hong Kong. On Oct 29, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu released the Independent Committee's investigation report on the disaster, and announced accountability details and reform measures, with the chief executive leading seven principal officials in offering a sincere, public apology for the fire. Then housing secretary Winnie Ho Wing-yin resigned to take political accountability on the same day.

However, some voices in the community question whether the accountability measures are strong or thorough enough, suggesting that all chiefs of the four policy bureaus named in the report should "step down en masse" or "face financial penalties". While such views may seem to align with an understandable public grief, they nevertheless overlook the core tenets of Hong Kong’s rule of law and political accountability system.

The reality is that the administration has confronted the incident without cover-ups, enforced accountability without ambiguity, and driven reforms without evasion. By addressing the tragedy with utmost candor, the chief executive and his governance team have fully demonstrated their commitment to facing crises head-on and courageously taking responsibility under the current Principal Officials Accountability System (POAS).

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In the early years following the 1997 handover, Hong Kong’s top officials were predominantly promoted from within the civil service. This blurred the boundaries of responsibility for policy successes or failures, often leading to a lack of clarity in accountability. To rectify this, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government introduced the POAS in July 2002. The core design of this system is to separate politically appointed officials from the permanent civil service, thereby clarifying the political accountability of principal officials and establishing clear lines of authority. Under this framework, the three secretaries of departments and all directors of bureaus are integrated into a politically accountable team, knows as “principal officials”. They are politically appointed on a contractual basis—nominated by the chief executive and appointed by the Central People’s Government—and are no longer part of the civil service. The chief executive can terminate their appointments in accordance with the law based on their performance, thus achieving institutionalized political accountability.

Politically accountable officials are primarily responsible for top-level policymaking, steering the direction of governance, explaining policies to the public, and answering queries in the Legislative Council. They bear overall responsibility at the political level for the success or failure of policies. In contrast, permanent civil servants focus on policy implementation, daily execution, and administrative management, bearing administrative and disciplinary responsibility for operational errors or negligence.

For principal officials, "shouldering political accountability" has never been a simplistic formula of "resigning immediately whenever an incident occurs". Instead, it comprises a layered, graded, and nuanced system of accountability. Depending on the cause, nature, impact of an incident and scope of authority, responsibility can be discharged through various means, including public apologies, policy rectifications, cross-departmental mechanism optimizations, portfolio adjustments, or resignations.

Only when a top-level policy design suffers from fundamental defects or widespread systemic failures are accountable principal officials required to resign to assume the highest tier of political accountability. If an incident is triggered by operational oversights or regulatory gaps, the resolution primarily relies on administrative accountability and institutional overhaul. This is the core tenet of Hong Kong's political accountability system. Although the Independent Committee's findings involve four bureaus, the issues identified lie mostly at the execution level rather than the policy level, and thus should be resolved through administrative accountability.

In the wake of the fire, the SAR government fully stepped up to its responsibilities, deploying a systematic, four-dimensional strategy to manage the aftermath: relief and resettlement, independent investigation, tiered accountability, and institutional reform—reflecting a proactive governance philosophy and strong execution.

Immediately after the fire, the government swiftly mobilized resources to conduct comprehensive rescue operations, resettle residents, and provide psychological counseling, ensuring that every affected resident had a place to live, financial aid, and emotional support. The government offered to acquire property titles of affected flats at prices above market value, with over 90 percent owners have accepted the resettlement solution.

To uncover the root cause of the blaze, the chief executive established an Independent Committee in early December. Over seven months of rigorous investigation, the committee held 30 public hearings, called 80 witnesses, and audited over one million documents, producing an authoritative and impartial report that identified the causes of the fire, the factors accelerating its spread, and the regulatory shortcomings.

The report explicitly states that the immediate trigger of the fire was the unlawful and non-compliant operations of the contractor and engineering consultant, while government departments exhibited insufficient regulatory coordination and lax process control. Based on these findings, the government activated a three-tiered accountability framework: launching criminal investigations against the implicated companies and individuals; initiating administrative disciplinary proceedings against negligent civil servants; and ensuring that relevant accountable principal officials fulfilled their responsibility by offering public apologies and assuming political accountability. This comprehensive accountability response precisely addresses public expectations.

The deep-seated issues exposed by the fire—such as building regulatory loopholes, fragmented departmental responsibilities and the failure of industry self-regulation—are entrenched institutional maladies. The government has persisted in a dual approach of investigating while rectifying and perfecting, embarking on a comprehensive and systemic reform.

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While letting more bureau chiefs to resign, as suggested by some, might help temporarily appease public anger, a dispassionate analysis reveals that doing so aligns neither with the spirit of the rule of law, nor with Hong Kong's broader socioeconomic development, nor with the collective interests of residents. Currently, as Hong Kong’s first five-year plan enters full implementation, the pursuit of development is at a critical juncture of overcoming formidable challenges. Governance stability, governance team continuity, and policy consistency are the ultimate guarantees for Hong Kong to surmount these difficulties and challenges. Widespread personnel upheaval is by no means a rational choice.

The Wang Fuk Court fire is a scar on Hong Kong, but scars do not define the city. The painful lessons of this tragedy must be transformed into a catalyst for enhancing governance capacity and improving public well-being, rather than allowing them to become a lightning rod for political attrition and internal discord.

The author is vice-chairman of the Committee on Liaison with Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Overseas Chinese of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and chairman of the Hong Kong New Era Development Thinktank.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.