The Housing Authority will include new requirements in its building contracts to be tendered out from May onwards, to secure and monitor wages payment to workers.

Chairman of the Building Committee Ip Kwok-him said these measures should work in tandem with enforcement action under the existing legislation so as to achieve the best deterrent effect.

The measures require contractors, among other things, to appoint Labour Relations Officers to work on site to check and verify the records of workers in employment, attendance, payment of wages and acknowledgement of receipt so as to monitor the whole situation and identify any anomaly.

The officer will also be responsible for receiving, acknowledging and recording complaints and inquiries from workers.

The Housing Authority will take action under the terms of the contract and List Management against any proven default.

Contractors and sub-contractors will be required to pay their workers through autopay to bank accounts.

In proven cases of default, a new measure allows the employer to pay outstanding wages owed to workers by a contractor if the debt is verified by the Labour Department and the Labour Tribunal. The sum will then be deducted from the contract sum as a debt from the contractor.

Site management

To tighten up site management, the contractor is also required to provide smart cards for recording workers' attendance; to produce Written Employment Agreements between the workers engaged on site and either the contractor or its sub-contractor to set out a clearer employment relationship; and to record all sub-contractors under a Sub-contractor Management Plan to provide greater transparency in the sub-contracting situation.

Mr Ip said as a major public sector developer having a large volume of construction activities, the authority would further enhance its listing requirements.

"Poor performance in the keeping of records related to payment of wages, or convictions for non-payment of due wages by the contractor or his sub-contractors, will trigger the consideration of regulatory action such as suspension from tendering and removal from the relevant lists," Mr Ip said.

HA will not pay wages arrears owed by Dickson

Meanwhile, the authority has ruled it will not settle the wage arrears owed by Dickson Construction, but it will ask the new contractors to hire the affected workers.

The tenders for new contracts of the Fanling and Shek Pai Wan sites will be issued by the end of this month, and the authority hopes the workers will resume duties in May.

Speaking after the authority's construction sub-committee meeting today, Mr Ip said members had agreed not to use the retention money to settle the wage arrears, not to directly pay Dickson Construction's employees as it contravenes the insolvency law, and not to use the pay-in-advance approach to settle the payment.

Mr Ip said members have discussed the three previous cases as proposed by the unions, but concluded the authority had not used works funds to pay wage arrears.

He said members are very sympathetic with the workers, but the authority has to be accountable in its use of public money.

He also admitted Dickson's financial problem had been detected as early as last July, but take-over of the sites had been used as a last resort because re-tendering would raise construction costs.