Tai Po fire probe: Housing Bureau’s checking unit failed to follow up on safety issues

Committee’s lead counsel presses Independent Checking Unit officer on its responsibilities and whether it had properly overseen key safety issues All eyes are on the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit (ICU), whose officers are scheduled to testify before a judge-led panel on Wednesday about their role in Hong Kong’s Tai Po blaze. Senior maintenance surveyor Andy Ku Siu-ping will be the only witness giving live evidence in the first of three sessions of the fourth round of evidential hearings. The unit, responsible for overseeing maintenance of government-built residential complexes, has long been criticised for failing to act on residents’ complaints about flammable polyfoam boards and substandard scaffolding mesh at Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court before the fire. Pressed by committee lead counsel Victor Dawes to explain the ICU’s responsibilities on Wednesday morning, Ku admits the unit had failed to properly monitor safety issues such as the use of substandard scaffolding and flammable polyfoam boards. The inferno broke out at the residential estate on November 26, 2025, when it was undergoing facade renovation. The blaze was Hong Kong’s deadliest since 1948, killing 168 people and displacing almost 5,000.

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