EOC took too long to resolve some complaints

The Equal Opportunities Commission must find ways to handle complaints as it has taken an average of 551 days to conclude 128 complaints, including one that needed 1,064 days to resolve, the Audit Commission said.

The watchdog slammed the EOC for taking too long to complete research projects and for purchasing a conference table for HK$95,000, the second highest quotation.

The director of audit said the EOC has set a performance pledge of concluding 75 percent of complaint cases within six months, and it managed to meet the pledge at 80 to 86 percent of the 5,014 complaints received from 2018 to 2022.

Five percent of the 2,800 complaints received between January 2020 and September last year, or 128 cases, took more than a year to conclude, it said. "The average time required to conclude the 128 cases was 551 days, ranging from 369 to 1,064 days."

The watchdog examined 25 of the complaints that took awhile to investigate and found that with the exception of four cases the EOC had failed to make plans for the investigation. The EOC also failed to report comprehensively on the reasons for the lengthy process.

It urged the EOC to "explore measures to reduce the time taken to conclude complaint cases as far as practicable."

The watchdog said the EOC needs to improve its customer satisfaction rate, as the overall customer satisfaction level dropped from 69 percent in 2017 to 62 percent in 2021.

The EOC is conducting legal studies on discrimination between Hongkongers and mainlanders, sexual harassment, discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and age discrimination, but many of the research projects were delayed. The commission appealed to the EOC to speed up the completion and consider imposing penalties for delays in the future, while also maintaining a pool of experienced staff.

It urged EOC staff to enhance compliance with its procurement manual after checking that 20 procurement values were above HK$50,000 from 2018 to 2022.

The lowest quotation among the 10 quotations received was HK$21,300, but the second highest quotation of HK$95,504 was recommended and approved due to a safety-lock and eight-year warranty.

In response, the EOC said that it agrees with the audit's recommendations and it has set a target time for completion.

The commission said it has submitted a research report on discrimination between Hongkongers and mainlanders to the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau in March 2021.

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com