My Thirty-nine Years in the Civil Service

It was a man’s world in the early 1960’s as far as the Administrative Service was concerned. I was one of the first three female Administrative Officers to be appointed when I joined the service in 1962. The government actually called a press conference to announce that, for the first time, women were joining the Administrative Officer grade!

The culture within government at that time discriminated against women. Men received higher remuneration than women, though both did exactly the same job. Although equal pay was finally introduced in 1975, there remained major disparities in the eligibility of married women for housing and other benefits that their male colleagues were entitled to receive. To address this unfairness, I and a group of like-minded women civil servants, set up the Association of Female Senior Government Officers together in 1979. Our efforts finally bore fruit in 1983, when complete parity was achieved in the pay and fringe benefits of female and male civil servants.

In my thirty-nine years in the civil service, I was privileged to become the first female Assistant Financial Secretary, the first female deputy director of a department, the first female director of a department, the first female policy secretary and the first Chinese and female Chief Secretary. This last was the greatest honour of my life. Others may think that everything went smoothly for me as I rose through the ranks. In fact, I also suffered setbacks, failures and was not always selected for promotion. For example, when I was Director of Social Welfare I was heavily criticized, both in the media and by public opinion, over the Department’s decision to remove a young girl: KWOK Ah-nui from the care of her mother whom we suspected to be emotionally disturbed. Had it not been for the adversities of my childhood and LU Xun’s spirit of “defying a thousand pointing fingers and continuing to serve with quiet strength” that I had learned from my mother, I would have found it difficult to continue to do my best and press forward with my responsibilities. It is therefore most gratifying to know that KWOK Ah-nui has now finished her studies, has a steady job and has assured me that she is able to take good care of her mother.

Another example could be found in my determination to liberalize the telecommunications market. You would all know that Hong Kong Telephone and Cable & Wireless used to monopolize the Hong Kong telecommunications market. In the absence of competition, the public were burdened with hefty fees for voice communication; it was not conducive to a good business environment either. Cable & Wireless U.K. was the single majority shareholder of Hong Kong Telephone at that time and it enjoyed wide connections in the U.K. It was not hard to imagine that I came under pressure from the Governor and the U.K. when I pushed for the liberalization of the telecommunications market. If I insisted, my career prospects could be compromised. I thought long and hard about it: liberalization of the telecommunications market had everything to do with the interest of the public, it would also enhance Hong Kong’s status as an international telecommunications hub. If I succumbed to pressure, I would go against my own principles. What did my career prospects matter compared to the common good? When a decision was imminent, I was summoned by the Governor and receiving lobbyists from the U.K. almost every week. But the lobby groups and pressure from my superiors did not succeed to sway me. With moral courage, I firmly pressed on with the liberalization of the telecommunications market. The policy was finally enacted when I was the Secretary for Economic Services. I felt really relieved at the accomplishment of this challenging task.

When Hong Kong reunited with the motherland in 1997, I became the Chief Secretary for Administration of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. I had originally intended to retire in 2000 but accepted the invitation of the Chief Executive, the Hon. Mr. TUNG Chee-wah, to stay on until 2002. It was my duty to give Mr. Tung my fullest support and I did so, even though we did not always see eye to eye on certain policy issues. However, I felt so strongly that his decision to launch the Principal Officials Accountability System was not in the best interests of good governance or the morale of the civil service, I decided I could no longer, in good conscience, continue to serve his Administration. In the end I decided to retire one year early. I am pleased to say that Mr. TUNG and I parted on good terms and with no personal acrimony. Upon my retirement Mr. TUNG gave me a letter to bid me farewell in which he graciously recognized my contribution to public service and thanked me for my faithful support for him in the four years we had worked together.