Renovation workers still smoked despite estate management’s complaints to contractor, Tai Po fire inquiry hears

Renovation workers at the fire-hit Wang Fuk Court kept smoking despite the estate’s management demanding that the project contractor fix the problem, a property officer has told a public inquiry.

Cheng Sze-ying, a property officer from ISS EastPoint Properties, attends a public hearing into Hong Kong’s deadly Tai Po fire on March 31, 2026. Photo: Hans Tse/HKFP.

Cheng Tsz-ying, a property officer from ISS EastPoint Properties, which managed the housing estate in Tai Po, testified before an independent committee tasked with investigating the blaze on Thursday. She said that her company had no control over renovation workers hired by the project’s main contractor, Prestige Construction & Engineering.

Victor Dawes, the lead committee lawyer, previously said that smoking was “most likely” the cause of the blaze that broke out on November 26 and raged for 43 hours, killing 168 people. Residents also testified that they saw workers smoking and filed multiple complaints, but to no avail.

A project meeting minutes from March 2025 showed that ISS and the Wang Fuk Court owners’ committee raised the issue with Prestige and gave it a month to improve, including by designating a smoking area.

But Cheng told the hearing that things “barely improved” afterwards. She said other complaints regarding the accumulation of rubbish and construction waste also did not lead to significant change.

Dawes asked Cheng whether it was fair to describe ISS’s role as a “speaking tube” – that of passing on residents’ complaints to Prestige.

“I can only say we couldn’t control Prestige’s workers. We couldn’t fire them,” Cheng said in Cantonese.

The entrance to the City Gallery in Central, where a public inquiry into the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire in Tai Po is held, on March 26, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

She added that Prestige had vowed to dismiss workers who smoked at work, but admitted that she did not know if the construction firm had enforced the rule.

Cheng, who was assigned to Wang Fuk Court in 2018, was the highest-ranked officer from ISS to testify at the public inquiry. When asked by Dawes, she said she did not know why her direct supervisor, manager Lai Wing-lee, did not choose to testify.

Rooftop water tanks

Earlier this week, an executive and a senior worker of Victory Fire Engineering, a fire safety contractor for Wang Fuk Court, testified that they discovered the estate’s alarm system was disabled before the blaze and requested Cheng produce the “shutdown notice,” which notifies the Fire Services Department of a deactivation.

Cheng disagreed with the pair’s accounts on Thursday, saying they only requested her to show the official notice after the fire broke out on November 26.

In July last year, ISS workers turned off the master switch of Wang Fuk Court’s fire safety system at the request of Prestige, which intended to conduct repairs to rooftop water tanks.

Chung Kit-man (centre), a director and engineer at Victory Fire Engineering, testifies at a public hearing into the massive Tai Po fire on March 30, 2026. Photo: Hans Tse/HKFP.

WhatsApp messaging logs from October showed Cheng texted Victory Fire director Chung Kit-man that the water tanks were refilled. On November 21, Cheng sent him 15 photos, which appeared to show full tanks.

However, at least two photos appeared to be taken before November, in August and September, respectively. Dawes said there was no evidence showing that the tanks had been refilled at the time of the fire.

Cheng said she received the photos from her junior colleague, Lok Sin-ying, and forwarded them to Chung. She added she did not know if the tanks were actually filled.

Proxy votes

Cheng also admitted that ISS had no mechanism to verify proxy votes at the Wang Fuk Court owners’ committee meetings.

The inquiry heard on Wednesday that proxy votes were “very common” at owners’ meetings and that they were difficult to verify.

People watch smoke coming from Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po on November 27, 2025, a day after the fire broke out at the housing estate. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

Residents had also lodged at least nine complaints with the Home Affairs Department about suspected fake proxy votes, Dawes said during Thursday’s hearing.

However, ISS did not receive a written complaint on the issue, Cheng said, adding the management office had “barely” discussed how to improve scrutiny of fake votes.

The hearings are set to resume next week after the Easter holiday and Ching Ming Festival.