‘Queuing gangs’ exploited Hong Kong driving licence ticketing system: ombudsman

The Hong Kong government watchdog has slammed the Transport Department over systemic deficiencies that allowed “queuing gangs” to abuse public resources, along with digital shortcomings that left overseas and mainland Chinese applicants with a negative impression.

An investigation by the Office of the Ombudsman, released on Monday, revealed that a group of seven agents exploited the ticketing system to submit 135 applications for the direct issue of Hong Kong full driving licences in a single day, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of the daily quota.

The Transport Department pointed out that the situations outlined in the report mainly concerned operations before the implementation of an online-only appointment system for counter services on March 16.

The watchdog pointed out that the online booking system was also abused, with duplicate bookings found every working day of spot checks and one individual hoarding 18 appointment slots on the same day.

“Our investigation revealed that the problem was not a coincidence, but rather stemmed from systemic deficiencies in the Transport Department’s queue management and abuse prevention mechanisms for counter services at the licensing offices, including their implementation, enforcement and crisis response,” the Office of the Ombudsman said.

“The above situations reflected Transport Department’s inadequate arrangements and failure to keep pace with the times, leading to the engrossing of scarce counter resources for commercial gain by agents who were familiar with Transport Department’s operations and relevant loopholes.”