The department’s divisional occupational safety officer at the time, Lam Sau-ching, also told the inquiry hearing that the government had asked the contractor, Prestige Construction and Engineering, for certificates to indicate it was using fire-resistant netting more than a year before the fire and that the contractor submitted certificates from January 2024.
Before the blaze in November, officials asked the company to provide documentation after it was supposed to have installed new scaffolding mesh netting following typhoons in 2025.
Lam confirmed that the department failed to realise that the certificates submitted were the old ones as officers did not conduct a cross check.
She agreed with the independent committee’s barrister, Lee Shu-wun, that had officials checked the documents more carefully, they could have spotted the problem.
Under repeated questioning by Lee, Lam also conceded she personally made a mistake when she replied to a complaint regarding the netting used in Wang Fuk Court.
She had said in early October 2024 that the law then did not cover fire-resistant standards when in fact it did.
Lam also testified that the department had made more frequent inspections to the estate as a result of complaints over renovation workers smoking, going there every month instead of making inspections every one to two months.
But Lam, who had also visited the site, said officials could not verify the complaints despite carrying out 17 visits, noting that she could not ascertain whether the cigarette butts she saw lying around had been disposed by workers or other smokers.
Lam noted that the department can only take action when workers are caught smoking next to dangerous materials, making it difficult to enforce the law.
Another witness, the department’s chief occupational safety officer Murphy Yuen, testified that officers could call up laboratories to check whether mesh netting was indeed fire resistant in the event they found a certificate to be suspicious.
He said there is little that officials can do to prevent contractors from lying if they planned to deceive.
In response, Lee expressed concern that this would be too reliant on the self discipline of contractors, adding that he thinks inquiries made to the labs would come too late.
The hearing also discussed the use of stairwell windows, stripped of their fittings, by renovation workers to go in and out of buildings.
The Labour Department said that such openings are there to protect the safety of workers, noting that in the event of a fire or a scaffolding collapse, workers can escape more easily.
But this, the department said, does not mean that it recommends the creation of the openings.
The independent committee’s chair, David Lok, said there appears to be a conflict of interest between that of workers and residents, noting that in Wang Fuk Court’s case, large amounts of smoke billowed into the corridors and units and affected the evacuation of residents as a result of the windows not being kept closed.
The hearing will continue on Wednesday with witnesses from the Fire Service Department due to testify.
