About 200 Hong Kong Public Servants are expected to be sacked for refusing to take a new oath of allegiance to the city mandated by the Government.
Secretary for the Civil Service, Patrick Nip Tak-kuen said the deadline for taking the oath had passed and his office had received a record of all declarations from the city’s 180,000 Public Servants.
He said about 200 employees had refused to make the pledge, adding that he did not have further details on their identities.
“If Civil Servants refuse to sign the declaration to accept and bear such basic responsibilities, then we will lose faith in them,” Mr Nip said.
“We will act in accordance with the mechanism. [They] will have to leave the Civil Service,” he said.
“We will also try to understand the reasons [for not signing] with each of these colleagues.”
Mr Nip said other Bureaus and Departments were consolidating data and would report to him later, and he would then have a better understanding of those involved.
The Chinese Government in Beijing recently reaffirmed the importance of ‘patriots’ governing the city.
Director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Xia Baolong said he believed most of the city’s residents were indeed patriotic, and it was paramount to put them in charge to ensure that the one country, two systems principle could continue to be implemented in the long run.
Hong Kong, 9 March 2021
