Eldon-Online

Chamber of Horrors

As a former Chairman of the The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, the news of the arrest by the ICAC of the current Chairperson on fraud charges highlights once again that no matter how hard you want to believe in the integrity of people in high places, you always run the risk of disappointment.

Lily Chiang has served the Chamber diligently for many years. She was always willing to attend Chamber functions, lead Missions and make her voice heard at meetings as a champion of the SME sector. She was not universally popular, but nobody could fault her commitment.

Attempts were made by some unseen hands, it seems, even before I reached the Chairman's Committee and for reasons that were neither entirely clear nor explained, to try and ensure that Lily was never given the ultimate office she sought. But as each attempt failed she gathered more support (or fewer objections perhaps) until her election to the Chair became inevitable. Some have said that her entry into the Liberal Party was helpful to her cause.

Ms. Chiang's case will be opened for a hearing on 4 March and, until that time, she must be considered innocent until and unless found to be guilty.

My concern, though, is more for the Chamber.

ICAC investigations are carried out in secret, and certainly while I was at the Chamber I was never aware of any investigation being carried out into the alleged wrongdoings of Ms. Chiang. As the investigations did not involve the Chamber, perhaps that was particularly understandable. Nevertheless, I am sure that she herself must have been aware, or at least questioned by the ICAC investigators. If this were the case, and if she was under ICAC investigation before she reached the Chair, her proclaimed innocence notwithstanding, I believe it would have been sensible and ethically mature for her to seek a "deferment" of her election. An appropriate reason would have been easy to create.

This is a "horror" scenario for the Chamber. They are not involved in any way with what is a personal matter for Ms. Chiang. But, through the amount of negative publicity surrounding the case, the Chamber has become "tainted by association" and needs to be allowed to get back to its "daily life".

Ms Chiang should seriously consider stepping-down from her Chamber position on a "leave of absence" basis until the matter has been concluded.

Up the Amazon (.com) Without a Paddle

I come from a humble background, and I'm proud of it; it's not an excuse for anything, but I am sure it's the reason why I often cheer for the underdog. I also take what I perceive to be injustice almost personally, even if it does not affect me directly.

Some years ago I went on a personal crusade against big companies who were "stringing along" small businesses by delaying payments to them - giving the little companies major cash flow headaches as they struggled to find the cash necessary to complete the next order. In all honesty I don't think I made much of a difference, but at least I was then in a position professionally to be noticed and do something useful, and it made me feel a lot better.

Fast forward to today, where the "influence" has waned somewhat and I myself have run into the gaping jaws of big business; in this case Amazon.com.

I don't have a complaint against them per se, but they appear to be allowing someone else to use my name and possibly my reputation in relation to reviews of books. This seems to me to be a primitive form of identity theft, and all I want from them are some simple answers so I can be satisfied - or find a solution - but can I get their attention? Not a chance!

After a number of half-hearted attempts by their customer relations department to answer my query about how I might resolve the problem (they suggested I change my name - seriously), I thought I should try their legal department - no good, no acknowledgement, no response. So I went back to where I started by trying customer relations. By now, however, they have clearly wised up and put me in the box with the designation "IGNORE" writ large. Nothing, so here I am in limbo like, I suspect, many others.

Amazon.com will presume that my latest one person crusade will fade away if they ignore me long enough, and that I will not bother to take any legal action to get a simple answer from them (or spend money on a name change!) and I will just be the proverbial gnat on the elephant's bottom; a slight irritant who will eventually fall off. But, reputations are hard to come by and I am not one to give up that easily, which is why I just love the "Never Give Up" cartoon I had on my wall for many years.