Hong Kong’s Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho will step down over mismanagement that led to a deadly fire at a housing complex that killed 168 people, leader John Lee has said, almost a year after the tragedy.

Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong, who currently leads the government’s task force on long-term resettlement for survivors of the blaze, will be appointed as acting housing minister as Ho steps down.

The Tai Po fire broke out on November 26 last year, engulfing seven buildings in the government-subsidised Wang Fuk Court housing estate during large-scale renovation works. The blaze killed 168 people and displaced over 4,600 residents.

Following the inferno, survivors have called for government officials to be held accountable, recalling their earlier attempts to sound the alarm over the construction company and a consultancy overseeing the renovation project.

The much-anticipated briefing was announced on Thursday, just two hours before Lee was scheduled to meet the press at government headquarters.

The government said in a statement last week that the independent committee investigating the deadly housing estate fire had submitted its final report to Chief Executive John Lee.

Lee said earlier this month that authorities would “pursue accountability” over the deadly blaze, but did not comment on whether government officials would be investigated for misconduct or lose their jobs.

Public hearings into the cause of the Wang Fuk Court blaze have suggested that various government departments, including the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit, the Fire Services Department, the Buildings Department, and the Labour Department, bore a share of the responsibility for the fire.

Senior Counsel Victor Dawes, representing the independent committee, said in July that the government “had an unshirkable responsibility to perform its regulatory role and protect the lives of residents.”

The report reads: “The relevant civil servants had ignored the real and legitimate safety concerns of the residents leaving them in a helpless and desperate situation. Most unfortunately, what happened afterwards show that the residents were right about their complaints.”

Wang Fuk Court’s residents and the general public, the report said, “have a legitimate and reasonable expectation that the regulators could have done more to protect their safety…and the evidence in the present case clearly shows that the regulators’ performance fell below that standard.”

“The failings were systemic and pervasive. They cannot be ignored[,]” it read.

This is a developing story – refresh for updates.

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