一个独立委员会发现，在致命的大埔火灾发生前，没有任何政府部门有效承担起消防安全风险的责任，导致居民投诉陷入真空，并点名四个部门对这场灾难负有部分责任。
No government department took effective ownership of fire safety risks ahead of the deadly Tai Po fire, leaving complaints made by residents to fall into a vacuum, an independent committee found, singling out four departments as partly responsible for the disaster.
周四，在发布长达1154页的完整报告时，政务司司长陈国基表示，他将领导一个督导委员会，审视并落实独立委员会提出的100多项建议。
At the release of the 1,154-page full report on Thursday, Chief Secretary for Administration Eric Chan Kwok-ki said he would lead a steering committee to review and implement the more than 100 recommendations of the independent committee.
这些建议包括将围标刑事化、加强对楼宇修缮及维护工程的监管，以及加强消防安全。
The recommendations included the criminalisation of bid-rigging, strengthening the supervision of building repairs and maintenance works, and stepping up fire safety.
这场火灾于去年11月26日在大埔宏福苑爆发，造成168人丧生，近2000户居民流离失所。
The fire, which broke out at Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court on November 26 last year, claimed 168 lives and displaced almost 2,000 households.
尽管委员会表示主要责任方是私营界别中无良的承建商、顾问和专业人士，但委员会指出，消防处、房屋局独立审查组、劳工处和屋宇署这四个部门“亦须承担部分责任”。
Although the committee said the main culprits were unscrupulous contractors, consultants and professionals from the private sector, it said four departments – the Fire Services Department, independent checking unit of the Housing Bureau, the Labour Department and the Buildings Department – “also bear part of the responsibility”.
委员会补充说，他们收到的证据显示，宏福苑居民曾就火灾风险向多个部门提出大量投诉，但这些投诉未得到充分调查。
The committee added that it received evidence of a large volume of complaints about fire risks by Wang Fuk Court residents against various departments, but these were not adequately investigated.
“投诉在政府部门之间转来转去，最终未获圆满解决。结果是没有任何（部门）有效承担起各类消防安全问题的责任，有关火警隐患的投诉陷入真空。”委员会承认，不同的监管制度导致难以确定哪个部门负责处理某一具体投诉。
“Complaints were passed from one government department to another, and ultimately left without satisfactory resolution. The result was that no [department] took effective ownership of various fire safety issues, and complaints about fire hazards fell into a vacuum.”The committee acknowledged that different regulatory regimes created uncertainty about which department was responsible for handling a particular complaint.
然而，委员会也批评公务员，称他们只是把“球”传给他人，忽视居民真实而合理的安全关切，使他们“陷入无助和绝望的境地”。
However, it also slammed civil servants, saying they had just “passed the ball” to others, ignoring the real and legitimate safety concerns of residents and leaving them “in a helpless and desperate situation”.
调查委员会补充说：“如果各相关部门对建筑外墙火灾的风险和可能后果有危机意识，堵塞监管制度中的漏洞……宏福苑的私营界别违规行为和火灾隐患，确实有可能在火灾发生前得到纠正或消除。”
“Had the various [departments] involved had a sense of crisis about the risks and possible consequences of building facade fires, plugged the loopholes in the regulatory regimes … There was a real possibility that the misconduct of the private sector and the fire hazards in Wang Fuk Court could have been rectified or removed before the fire,” the committee added.
对建筑工地吸烟投诉的处理就是这种推诿塞责的突出例子，投诉在消防处、劳工处、卫生署及其他机构之间被推来推去，没有一个部门因管辖权主张和被动执法而承担责任。
The handling of complaints about smoking on construction sites was a glaring example of this buck-passing, with the complaints deflected among the Fire Services Department, Labour Department, Department of Health and other bodies, none of which took ownership due to jurisdictional claims and passive enforcement.
委员会指出，与此同时，由于每个监管机构各自为政，不共享其专业登记册、检控记录、腐败行为记录或三合会参与记录，承建商可能因违规行为被一个监管机构反复纪律处分，而另一个主管机构却继续为该承建商续发牌照。
At the same time, with each regulator operating in its own lane and not sharing its professional registers, prosecution logs, records of corrupt behaviour or of triad involvement, a contractor could be repeatedly disciplined for regulatory offences by one regulator while another authority continued to renew the contractor’s license, the committee noted.
委员会表示：“这场（火灾）暴露了负责建筑安全、临时工程和建筑材料监管、职业安全健康执法以及消防安全的政府机构之间在协调上的系统性失灵。”
“The [fire] exposed a systemic failure of coordination among the government bodies responsible for building safety, temporary works and building materials regulation, occupational safety and health enforcement, fire safety,” it said.
“没有任何一个部门对外墙上不断累积的风险有全面的态势感知。每个部门都在自己的筒仓内行事，也不存在共享和交叉核对信息、升级关切或联合干预的机制。”在周四的新闻发布会上，陈说委员会提出的建议“环环相扣，涉及不同政策局和部门的工作”。
“No single department had full situational awareness of the risks accumulating on the facade. Each department acted within its own silo, and no system existed for sharing and cross‑checking information, escalating concerns, or intervening jointly.”In the Thursday press conference on Thursday, Chan said the recommendations raised by the committee were “closely interlinked and involve the work of different policy bureaus and departments”.
他补充说：“我们需要做的不仅仅是逐项落实独立委员会的建议，更重要的是解决跨部门和跨范畴的问题。”
“What we need to do is not just implement the Independent Committee’s recommendations item by item, but more importantly, tackle cross-departmental and cross-cutting issues,” he added.
“我会要求所有政策局和部门迅速、准确、有效地落实各项建议……并持续检视是否有进一步优化的空间，加倍努力，确保不遗余力。”陈说，将建立一个中央数据系统，使不同部门能够打破信息孤岛，共享检查、违规和定罪记录，以防止不合规的承建商暗中取得牌照或合约。
“I will require all policy bureaus and departments to implement the recommendations swiftly, accurately and effectively … continuously examining whether there is room for further optimisation to go the extra mile to ensure no stone is left unturned.”Chan said a central data system will be established to enable different departments to break information silos, sharing records on inspections, violations and convictions to prevent non-compliant contractors from covertly securing licences or contracts.
他表示，与楼宇装修相关的投诉也将上传至该系统，并利用人工智能追踪投诉处理进度、识别重复投诉，以便及早发现风险。“我们会逐项落实建议，防止类似悲剧再次发生。”
He said complaints related to building renovations would also be uploaded to the system, with artificial intelligence used to track the progress of complaint handling and identify repeated complaints to enable early detection of risks. “We will implement the recommendations one by one to prevent similar tragedies from happening again.”