Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, at a media session after attending a radio programme this morning (February 2):
 
Reporter: Mr Chief Secretary, you ask officials to put themselves in people's shoes when they formulate a policy? But isn’t that what they are supposed to do when they do that? 
 
Chief Secretary for Administration: Yes, certainly this is what they should do. But in certain circumstances where cross-bureau, cross-departmental co-operation is involved, I think that there is room for improvement and enhancement. Particularly, I will make use of the policy committee, of which all principal officials are members already, so that we can find out problems straight away and make sure that the policies when it comes to implementation is smooth. And also we will make sure that the policies really serve the purpose of benefiting the community at large.
 
Reporter: Secretary, if you don't mind, one more question. It's been reported that you need Beijing approval to extend the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance to the Chief Executive. Can you confirm if that is true?
 
Chief Secretary for Administration: Well, in my answer to a question in the Legislative Council recently, I made it quite clearly in my reply that the issue involved is very complicated. It also has implications on the constitutional status of the Chief Executive and it also has a lot of legal points involved. So at this time, we are still continuing the study. The study has to be holistic in order to sort out all these problems in the first place.
 
Reporter: So it involved Beijing?
 
Chief Secretary for Administration: Well, I won't go into all the details, but this is a complicated issue with constitutional and also legal implications. Very complicated. So we need time to look into it very closely.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Saturday, February 2, 2019
Issued at HKT 13:17

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