District councilor accused of leading team to Wang Fuk Court owners' meeting

A Tai Po district councilor is said to be leading a team to a Wang Fuk Court owners' meeting where a volunteer allegedly took a resident's ballot, the fire hearing revealed Monday.

The testimony came from Kong Cheung-fat, a former member of the owners' corporation management committee of Wang Fuk Court, who appeared at the 15th session of the independent hearing this morning.

“Proxy votes have been a long-time issue, which blocked new candidates from participating and secured votes for old committee members,” said Kong. 

He pointed to a special owners’ meeting on January 28, 2024, concerning the appointment of the estate’s renovation contractor, at which the then-Tai Po district councilor Peggy Wong Pik-kiu and a team of volunteers were also present.

Kong described the volunteers as "unfriendly," queuing up alongside residents to collect voting documents.

During the meeting, friction arose between a volunteer and a female resident when the resident found her vote had already been taken. The resident complained and called the police, but Wong pulled the volunteer aside, calling the incident simply "a misunderstanding" as officers arrived and recorded the volunteer's details.

Kong later heard that the volunteer had obtained a proxy vote from the involved resident's mother during an earlier home visit, and the resident ultimately did not pursue the matter.

Kong said in the hearing that the final count showed more than 500 votes, while there were only 200 people who voted in person. "In every election, a batch of proxy votes gets dropped into the box," Kong added.

When asked about the details of Wong's collection of proxy votes, Kong said Wong sets up street booths at the main bus route — often claiming to assist residents with subsidy applications — to collect resident information and signatures.

He added that another district councilor, Mui Siu-fung, who sometimes joined and encouraged residents to join the "Operation Building Bright 2.0" scheme to lift economic burdens. 

Kong said he finally joined the management committee in May 2024, but found that he was being isolated from other members and could only urge residents to vote in person.

He added that the transition to the new committee was also mishandled, as the former owners’ corporation chairman, Tang Kwok-kuen, hid information from him and excluded him from communication groups.

More importantly, the abuse of proxy votes remained unresolved despite increased efforts to promote in-person voting. Kong attributed the continued issue to the property management firm ISS EastPoint for failing to verify votes properly, saying even a “random cross mark” would be accepted as a signature.