Hong Kong’s third runway project, seen here under its first flight testing, has been plagued with corruption issues on labour and contracting

An imported worker at Hong Kong’s “third runway” project was yesterday charged with bribing 10 fellow workers to help them keep their jobs in Hong Kong under the imported labour scheme.

Chen Xianliang, 62, was the team leader of carpenters for Gammon Construction of the Three Runway System Project at Hong Kong International Airport. According to ICAC, he was charged with allegedly accepting bribes of around $54,000 from 10 fellow imported workers for “assisting them over their continuous employment” at  Gammon.

An ICAC investigation arose from complaints in relation to alleged wage exploitation involving imported workers.

These workers were referred by the defendant to work in Hong Kong. In late December 2023, they arrived in Hong Kong from the Mainland to work at a monthly salary of around $37,000. Upon their arrival in Hong Kong, the defendant allegedly solicited the aforesaid bribes from the 10 workers.

The third runway project has been plagued with bribery and corruption at all levels. Regarding labour and imported labour, ICAC has now charged at least 29 people, including Chen yesterday, for collecting bribes of around $2 million from more than 140 workers on the project. Around 22 caught have already pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to up to 16 months in jail.

And on the contractor side, ICAC operation “Blizzard” revealed a tangled web of corruption involving around $7.7 million bribes paid for $280 million-worth of sub-contracts and materials purchase orders.

Last week, a former Principal Manager of the Airport Authority Hong Kong, Ricky Lee Wing-fai, 49, admitted at the District Court that he had accepted bribes of about $3.3 million and laundered crime proceeds totalling about $5.7 million.

Five others were arrested with Lee and will appear in District Court this week.

Imported labour is also under fire this week, with many disuptes and corruption allegations surfacing across the city: just yesterday, the Hospital Authority said it was “highly concerned” about disputes relating to imported labour and the United Christian Hospital expansion project.

In October last year, ahead of the imported labout scheme launch, Transit Jam exposed the proposed living conditions of imported construction workers

Without admitting problems, Labour Department has suspended all new imported labour quotas this month, approving no new applications.