Drug expert quits college job to ease conflict-of-interest worries
Professor Daniel Shek Tan-lei, the city's leading academic on youth drug issues, is stepping down as the acting school supervisor of Christian Zheng Sheng College and as a member of its board of directors this month, after concern over potential conflicts of interest.
Shek, who is also the chairman of the Action Committee Against Narcotics, a drug advisory body, said it was a move to boost corporate governance at the private school, which offers rehabilitation services for teenage drug addicts.
The Lantau-based college's sponsor, the Christian Zheng Sheng Association, came under investigation from the Independent Commission Against Corruption in August.
'Board members should rotate once in a while and the school board should take in new members from time to time to strengthen the school's corporate governance,' Shek said. 'My departure can also be seen as a move to dismiss all potential concern, questioning or fear about conflicts of interest.'
The Security Bureau said recently Shek had always declared his interest at relevant meetings, and abstained from all discussions of items involving funding applications from the Christian Zheng Sheng Association during his term at the advisory body.
Another member of the college's board of directors, Dr Chui Hong-sheung, president of Hang Seng School of Commerce, will also step down at the end of this year. Chui has been a member of the board since 1998, advising on education issues.
Two new members, Fong Shun-yuen, principal of CCC Tam Lee Lai Fun Memorial Secondary School, and Dr Cheng Kin-tak, vice-principal of United Christian College (Kowloon East), will take their places on the six-member school board.
Concern has been raised over Shek's involvement with both the school and the drug advisory body.
Speaking as the acting supervisor of the school on his last working day yesterday, Shek said Ernst & Young had been assigned to separate the financial information of the school and its sponsoring body, the Christian Zheng Sheng Association.
'Also, papers have been submitted to register the college as a charitable organisation - this is another main duty I have to take care of,' Shek said. 'Now all the work about the balance book and school registration is completed and we just have to wait for the results. The present school board will be dissolved, and a new one constituted, once the registration of the school's status as a non-profit organisation is completed.'
Jacob Lam Hay-sing, who will resume duty as the college's school supervisor today, said it would fully assist the ICAC with its investigation.
