The company also claimed it had received a safety certificate from a lab in Binzhou, Shandong province, but Tang said the contact number was invalid.
“We are in contact with the relevant departments on the mainland, which will assist in our investigations,” he said.
Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho said a “strict approach” was necessary and ordered that around 200 private buildings and a dozen public housing blocks or government buildings must take down their scaffolding nettings by Saturday.
“Because we suspect falsified documents, to protect the safety of residents, and to alleviate the concerns of residents of buildings undergoing renovation … I announce that the government will require scaffolding netting in all private and public buildings to be removed within the next three days,” Linn said.
She said that the Buildings Department was expected to issue new operational guidelines by next week, requiring all scaffolding netting to be sampled on-site and certified safe by appointed labs before it could be installed.
Linn noted that engineering work in the city was often built upon trust in professionals.
“If this incident showed that this trust cannot be upheld, then our approach to handling these matters will be reviewed,” she said.
“If individual contractors are found to be violating regulations and are embroiled in commercial disputes as a result of their licence being revoked, then I believe the industry has to learn a lesson from this incident as a result of these black sheep.”
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/hong-kong-authorities-remove-scaffold-netting-scrutiny-tai-po-fire-5539126
